UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00022092904 


HOLLO'S 


EXPERIMENTS. 


BY   THE 


AUTHOR   OF   ROLLO    LEARNING   TO  TALK.   TO 

READ,  AT  WORK,  AT  PLAY,  AT  SCHOOL, 

AT  VACATION,  &c. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED  BY  HOGAN  &  THOMPSON. 

AND 

BOSTON: 

BY  GOULD,  KENDALL  &  LINCOLN. 

1845. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1839, 

By  T.  H.  Carter, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  Massachusetts. 


STEREOTYPED  AT  THE 
BOSTON  TYPE   AND  STEREOTYPE  FOUNT  RY. 


CONTENTS 


Page 
JONAS   AN  ASTRONOMER .v-~     .. 

PRUNING 23 

THE  GREAT  BEETLE  AND  WEDGE 35 

THE  LITTLE  BEETLE  AND  WEDGE 46 

SPLITTING 59 

HOROLOGY 80 

JONAS'S  DIAL 94 

THE   BEE-HIVE 112 

JONAS'S   MAGNET 124 

MAGNETISM 139 

INTELLECTUAL  PHILOSOPHY 157 

OSCILLATIONS 165 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


http://www.archive.org/details/rollosexperiment1845abb 


ROLLO'S    EXPERIMENTS. 


JONAS   AN   ASTRONOMER. 

One  day,  when  Rollo  was  about  seven 
years  oldj  he  was  sitting  upon  the  steps  of 
the  door,  and  he  heard  a  noise  in  the  street, 
as  of  some  sort  of  carriage  approaching.  A 
moment  afterwards,  a  carryall  came  in  sight. 
It  drove  up  to  the  front  gate,  and  stopped. 
Rollo's  father  and  mother  and  his  little 
brother  Nathan  got  out.  His  father  fas- 
tened the  horse  to  the  post,  and  came  in. 

When  Rollo  first  heard  the  noise  of  the 
carryall,  he  was  sitting  still  upon  the  steps 
of  the  door,  thinking.  He  was  thinking 
of  something  that  Jonas,  his  father's  hired 
boy,  had  told  him  about  the  sun's  shining  in 
at  the  barn  door.  There  was  a  very  large 
double  door  to  Rollo's  father's  barn,  and  as 
this  door  opened  towards  the  south,  the  sun 


12  JONAS    AN    ASTRONOMER. 

used  to  shine  in  very  warm,  upon  the  barn 
floor,  in  the  middle  of  the  day. 

Rollo  and  Jonas  had  been  sitting  there 
husking  some  corn, — for  it  was  in  the  fall 
of  the  year ;  —  and  as  it  was  rather  a  cool 
autumnal  day,  Rollo  said  it  was  lucky  that 
the  sun  shone  in,  for  it  kept  them  warm. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jonas  ;  "  and  what  is  remark- 
able, it  always  shines  in  farther  in  the 
winter  than  it  does  in  the  summer." 

"  Does  it  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jonas. 

"And  what  is  the  reason  ?  "  asked  Rollo. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Jonas,  "  unless  it  is 
because  we  want  it  in  the  barn  more  in  1he 
winter  than  we  do  in  the  summer." 

"  Ho  !  "  said  Rollo  ;  "  I  don't  believe  that 
is  the  reason." 

"  Why  not  ? "  said  Jonas. 

"  O,  I  don't  believe  the  sun  moves  about 
in  the  heavens,  to  different  places,  only  just 
to  shine  into  barn  doors." 

"  Why,  it  keeps  a  great  many  farmers' 
boys  more  comfortable,"  said  Jonas. 

"  Is  it  so  in  all  barns  ?  "  asked  Rollo. 

"I  suppose  so,"  said  Jonas. 

After  some   further  conversation  on  the 


JONAS    AiT   ASTRONOMER. 


13 


subject,  the  boys  determined  to  watch  the 
reflection  of  the  sun's  beams  upon  the  barn 
floor  for  a  good  many  days,  and  to  mark  the 
place  that  it  came  in  to,  at  noon  every  day, 
with  a  piece  of  chalk.  It  was  only  a  few 
minutes  before  the  carryall  came  up,  that 
they  had  determined  upon  this,  and  had 
marked  the  place  for  that  day;  and  then 
Rollo  had  come  out  of  the  barn,  and  was 
sitting  upon  the  door  step,  thinking  of  the 
subject,  when  his  reflections  were  interrupted 
in  the  manner  already  described. 

So,  when  Rollo  saw  his  father  getting  out 
of  the  carryall,  he  ran  to  meet  him,  and. 
called  out  to  him,  talking  very  Loud  and 
rapidly, 

"Father,  Jonas  says  that  the  sun  shines 
farther  in,  upon  the  barn  floor,  in  winter  than 
in  summer  ;  —  does  it,  do  you  think  ?  " 

But  this  was  not  a  proper  time  for  Rollo 
to  bring  up  his  philosophical  question.  His 
father  had  a  carpet  bag  and  several  packages 
in  his  hands,  and  he  was  also  conducting 
Rollo's  mother  in,  and  thinking  about  the 
horse  and  carryall.  So  he  told  Rollo  that 
he  must  not  speak  to  him  then,  for  he  could 
not  attend  to  him. 


14 


JONAS    AN    ASTRONOMER. 


Hollo  then  walked  along  back  into  the 
yard,  and  began  to  think  of  the  subject  of 
the  sun's  shining  in  at  the  south  door.  He 
looked  up  towards  the  sun,  and  began  to 
consider  what  sort  of  a  change  in  its  place, 
at  noon,  on  different  days,  would  be  neces- 
sary in  order  to  account  for  its  shining  in 
more  at  south  doors  and  windows,  on  some 
days,  than  on  others.  He  reflected  that  if 
the  sun  were  exactly  overhead,  at  noon,  it 
could  not  shine  in  at  any  doors  at  all ;  for 
the  rays  would  then  strike  perpendicularly 
down  the  sides  of  the  houses.  While  he 
was  standing  thus,  lost  in  thought,  looking 
up  to  the  sun,  with  his  arm  across  his  fore- 
head, to  shelter  his  eyes  a  little  from  the 
dazzling  rays,  he  suddenly  felt  the  pressure 
of  two  soft  hands  upon  his  ears,  as  of  some- 
body who  had  come  up  behind  him.  He 
turned  round,  and  found  his  cousin  Lucy 
standing  there. 

Lucy  asked  him  what  he  was  thinking 
of,  and  he  told  her.  He  then  took  Lucy 
into  the  barn,  and  showed  her  the  chalk  mark 
upon  the  floor.  She  looked  on  with  a  good 
of  interest,  and  said  she  thought  it  was  an 
excellent  plan  ;  and  she  wished  there  was  a 


JONAS    AN    ASTRONOMER.  15 

great  barn  with  a  south  door  at  their  house. 
Lucy  knew  more  about  the  subject  than 
Rollo  did,  and  she  gave  him  some  explana- 
tions about  it.  "  You  see,"  said  she,  "  that 
the  sun  rises  in  the  east  every  morning,  and 
comes  up  higher  and  higher,  every  hour,  till 
noon  ;  and  then  it  begins  to  go  down  again, 
and  at  last  it  sets  in  the  west.  But,  at  some 
times  in  the  year,  it  comes  up  higher  at  noon 
than  it  does  at  other  times,  and  so  it  does 
not  shine  so  much  into  the  door." 

"  It  shines  more,  you  mean,"  said  Rollo. 

"  No,"  said  Lucy ;  "  not  so  much.  In  the 
winter  the  sun  moves  around  by  the  south, 
and  keeps  pretty  low  all  day,  and  of  course 
shines  farther  into  doors  and  windows." 

Then,  after  a  moment's  pause,  she  added, 

"If  we  should  mark  the  place  on  the 
floor  all  the  year  round,  we  should  find  what 
time  the  sun  is  farthest  to  the  south." 

"  So  we  should,"  said  Rollo. 

"  It  would  be  in  the  winter,"  said  Lucy. 

"Yes,"  said  Rollo;  "in  the  middle  of  the 
winter  exactly." 

"Yes,"  said  Lucy;  "and  in  the  middle 
of  the  summer  it  would  be  nearest  over- 
head." 


16  JONAS    AN    ASTRONOMER. 

"Jonas  and  I  will  try  it,"  said  Rollo. 

"  I  can  try  it  in  the  house,"  said  Lucy 
"  where  the  sun  shines  in  at  my  chamber 
window." 

"  O  no,"  said  Rollo ;  "that  won't  do." 

"  Why  not  ?  "  said  Lucy. 

"  Because  the  window  does  not  come 
down  to  the  floor,  and  so  does  not  let  the 
sun  in  enough." 

"  O,  that  makes  no  difference,"  said 
Lucy  ;  "we  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
bottom  of  the  door ;  you  only  mark  where  it 
shines  in  the  farthest,  and  that  place  is  made 
by  the  top  of  the  door,  for  it  shines  in  far- 
thest by  the  top  of  the  door." 

"Well,"  said  Rollo,  "I  don't  know  but 
that  the  house  will  do  ;  but  then  you  can't 
chalk  on  the  carpet." 

"  Chalk  on  the  carpet  ? "  said  Lucy. 

"Yes,  to  mark  the  place." 

"No,"  said  Lucy,  thinking ;  "but  I  can 
mark  it  some  other  way." 

"How?"  asked  Rollo. 

"  Why,  I  can  put  a  pin  in,"  said  Lucy. 

"  O  dear,"  said  Rollo,  with  a  laugh,  "  put 
a  pin  in  !  That's  no  way  to  mark  a 
shadow." 


JONAS    AN    ASTRONOMER.  17 

"  It  isn't  a  shadow,"  said  Lucy. 

"Yes,  it  is,"  said  Rollo. 

"  No,"  said  Lucy ;  "a  shadow  is  dark,  and 
this  is  bright." 

"Yes,"  said  Rollo,  "this  is  a  bright  shad- 
ow ;  some  shadows  are  bright,  and  some  are 
dark." 

"  O  Rollo !  "  said  Lucy  ;  and  she  turned 
away  from  him,  a  little  out  of  humor. 

The  truth  was,  that  Rollo  and  Lucy  were 
getting  decidedly  into  a  dispute.  From  the 
sublime  heighis  of  practical  astronomy,  they 
had  fallen,  by  a  sad  and  very  rapid  descent, 
to  a  childish  altercation.  Rollo  had  a  very 
high  idea  of  the  superior  facilities  afforded 
by  Jonas's  barn  floor  for  observing  the  daily 
changes  in  the  sun's  meridian  altitude,  and 
he  did  not  like  the  idea  of  Lucy's  finding 
that  she  had  equally  good  opportunities  for 
observation  at  her  home.  Lucv  was  a  little 
fretted  at  Rollo 's  captious  spirit  ;  but  then 
her  mind  soon  became  unruffled  again,  and 
she  turned  back  towards  Rollo,  and  said,  as 
they  walked  along  the  yard, 

"  I  don't  think  the  sunshine  on  the  floor 
is  a  shadow,  Rollo  ;  but  then  I  don't  see  why 
a  shadow  would  not  do,  jus*  as  well." 
a*  2* 


18  JONAS    AN    ASTBONOMER. 

"How?"  saidRollo. 

"  Why,  look  there  at  the  shadow  of  that 
post,  — that  would  do." 

She  pointed  to  a  post  with  a  rounded  top 
upon  it,  which  stood  by  the  side  of  the 
garden  gate.  The  shadow,  clear,  distinct, 
and  well  denned,  was  projected  upon  the 
walk ;  and  Lucy  told  Rollo  that  they  might 
mark  the  place  where  the  top  of  that  shadow 
came  every  day,  and  that  that  would  do  just 
as  well. 

"  But  how  could  we  mark  it  ?  "  said 
Rollo. 

"  Why,  we  could  drive  a  little  stake  unto 
the  ground.'7 

"  O,  that  would  not  do,"  said  Rollo. 
"  People  would  trip  over  them,  and  break 
them  down.  They  would  be  exactly  in  the 
walk." 

Lucy  saw  that  this  would  be  a  difficulty, 
and,  for  a  moment,  seemed  to  be  at  a  loss. 
At  length,  she  said, 

iC  We  might  go  somewhere  else,  then, 
where  the  people  would  not  come." 

"  But  what  should  we  do  for  a  post  ?  "  said 
Rollo. 


JONAS    AN    ASTRONOMER.  19 

"  Could  not  we  get  Jonas  to  drive  a  tall 
stake  down  ? "  said  Lucy.  . 

"Yes,"  said  Rollo  ;  "  I  suppose  so." 

The  children  went  out  into  the  garden  to 
find  a  good  smooth  place,  and  while  they 
were  walking  about  there,  Rollo 's  mother 
came  out,  and  they  told  her  the  whole  story. 
She  seemed  quite  interested  in  the  plan,  and 
told  them  of  a  better  way  than  any  that  they 
had  thought  of. 

"You  see,"  said  she,  "that  the  height  of 
the  stake  or  pole  that  makes  the  shadow 
is  not  material ;  for  the  shadow  of  a  small 
one  will  vary  just  as  much,  in  proportion  to 
its  length,  as  that  of  a  long  one  will.  So, 
instead  of  taking  a  wooden  stake,  out  of 
doors,  you  might  take  a  large  pin,  and  drive 
it  down  a  little  way  into  the  window  sill,  in 
the  house.  Then  you  can  mark  the  shadow 
with  a  pen,  very  exactly." 

"So  we  can,"  said  Lucy,  clapping  her 
hands. 

"And  you  might  put  a  piece  of  white 
paper,  or  a  card  down  first,"  continued 
Rollo's  mother,  "  and  drive  the  pin  through 
that,  and  then  mark  the  places  where  the 
end  of  the  shadow  comes  every  day,  directly 


20  JONAS    AN    ASTRONOMER. 

on  the  card,  with  a  fine  pen.  Thus  you 
could  be  a  great  deal  more  exact  than  you 
can  in  chalking  upon  a  barn  floor. " 

Rollo  asked  his  mother  if  she  would  not 
be  kind  enough  to  help  them  fix  their  ap- 
paratus ;  but  she  said  she  would  give  them 
particular  directions,  though  she  should  pre- 
fer 'stung  them  dc  the  whole  themselves, 
and  then,  if  they  met  with  any  difficulties, 
they  might  come  and  report  them  to  her, 
?.nd  she  would  tell  them  how  to  surmount 
fhem.  So  she  recommended  to  them  to  go 
and  find  a  blank  card,  or  piece  of  white 
pasteboard,  or  of  stiff  white  paper,  as  big  as 
a  common  card.  "  Then,"  said  she,  "choose 
some  window  where  the  sun  shines  in  at 
noon,  and  put  the  card  down  upon  the 
sill,  and  drive  the  pin  down  through  it. 
But  you  must  not  drive  the  pin  through  the 
middle  of  the  card,  for  the  shadow  will  al- 
ways be  off  to  the  north  of  the  pin,  and 
therefore  the  pin  may  be  pretty  near  the 
south  end  of  the  card.  Then  the  shadow 
will  be  more  likely  to  come  wholly  upon 
the  card,  even  when  it  is  longest.  You 
had  better  place  the  card  in  such  a  position, 
too,  that  its  sides  shall  lie  in  the  direction  of 


JONAS    AN    ASTRONOMER.  21 

north  and  south.  Then  the  shadow  at  noon 
will  lie  along  exactly  in  the  middle  of  it. 
You  must  get  a  large  and  stout  pin,  too ;  and 
drive  it  in  firmly,  a  little  way,  with  a  small 
hammer.  It  will  be  well,  too,  to  drive 
another  smaller  pin  into  the  other  end  of  the 
card,  so  as  to  keep  it  fixed  in  its  north  and 
south  position." 

"  How  can  we  know  when  it  is  north  and 
south,  exactly  ?  "  said  Lucy. 

"  You  cannot  do  it  exactly,"  said  Rollo's 
mother ;  "  but  you  can  get  it  pretty  near. 
One  way  is  to  borrow  father's  little  compass, 
and  adjust  it  by  that.  Another  way  is  to 
see  when  it  is  exactly  twelve  o'clock  by 
the  clock,  and  then  the  shadow  of  the  pin 
will  of  itself  be  about  north. 

"  Then  you  might  move  the  north  end  of 
the  card  until  the  shadow  is  brought  exactly 
into  the  middle  of  the  card,  and  then  put 
the  other  pin  in,  and  fix  it  in  that  place. 
Then  if  you  make  a  mark  along  where  the 
shadow  comes,  that  mark  will  be  a  north 
and  south  line,  and  you  can  mark  the  place 
where  the  shadow  of  the  pin's  head  crosses 
that  line,  when  it  crosses  it  every  day  at 
noon." 


22  JONAS    AN    AS    HONOMER. 

Thi  children  said  that  they  believed  they 
understood  the  directions,  and  they  deter- 
mined to  try  the  plan.  They  thought  they 
would  fix  two  cards,  one  at  Rollo's  house, 
and  one  at  Lucy's;  and  they  immediately 
went  off  in  pursuit  of  blank  cards  and  big 
pins. 


23 


PRUNING 

One  afternoon,  Rollo  saw  his  father  coming 
out  into  the  garden,  with  a  little  saw  and  i 
knife,  and  a  small  pot  of  paint  in  his  hands. 

"Father,"  said  he,  "are  you  going  to 
prune  your  trees  now  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father. 

"  Then,  shall  I  go  and  get  my  wheelbar- 
row ? " 

"  Yes,"  replied  his  father,  again. 

So  Rollo  ran  off  after  his  wheelbarrow. 
It  had  been  arranged,  between  him  and  his 
father  that  morning,  that  they  should  work 
in  the  garden  an  hour  or  two  in  the  after- 
noon, and  that  Rollo  should  pick  up  all  the 
cuttings  from  the  trees,  and  wheel  them 
away,  and  then,  when  they  were  dry,  make 
a  bonfire  with  them. 

Rollo  found  his  wheelbarrow  in  its  proper 
place,  and  trundled  it  along  into  the  garden. 

"  Father,"  said  he,  "  what  trees  are  you 
going  to  prune  first  ?  " 


24  PRUNING. 

"  O,  I  am  going  to  begin  at  the  back  side 
of  the  garden,  and  prune  them  all,  advancing 
regularly  to  the  front." 

"  What  is  the  saw  for  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  To  saw  off  the  large  branches,  that  I 
can't  cut  off  easily  with  a  knife." 

"  But  I  should  not  think  you  would  want 
to  saw  off  any  large  branches,  for  so  you 
will  lose  all  the  apples  that  would  grow  on 
them  next  year." 

"  Why,  sometimes,  the  branches  are  dead, 
and  then  they  would  do  no  good,  but  only 
be  in  the  way." 

"  But  do  they  do  any  hurt  ? "  said  Rollo. 

"Why,  they  look  badly." 

"  But,  I  mean,  would  they  do  any  actual 
hurt  to  the  tree  ?  " 

"  Why,  I  don't  know,"  said  his  father ; 
"perhaps  they  would  not.  At  any  rate,  if 
I  cut  them  off  pretty  close  to  the  living  part 
of  the  tree,  the  bark  will  then  gradually 
extend  out  over  the  little  stump  that  I  leave, 
and  finally  cover  it  over,  and  take  it  all  in,  as 
it  were." 

By  this  time,  Rollo  and  his  father  had 
reached  the  back  side  of  the  garden,  and 
his  father  showed  him  the  place  where  he 


PRUNING.  25 

had  cut  off  a  limb  the  year  before,  and  he 
saw  how  the  fresh  young  bark  had  protruded 
itself  all  around  it,  and  was  spreading  in 
towards  the  centre  so  as  to  cover  it  over. 
Rollo  then  saw  that  it  was  better  that  all 
old  dead  limbs  should  be  cut  off. 

"  That's  curious,"  said  Rollo. 

11  Yes,  very  curious,"  said  his  father.  "A 
tree  will  take  in,  and  cover  up,  almost  any 
thing  that  is  fastened  to  the  wood,  in  the 
same  manner." 

"Will  it?"  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father.  "  If  you  drive  a 
nail  into  a  tree,  the  bark  will,  after  a  time, 
cover  it  over  entirely.  Sometimes  people 
find  things  in  old  trees,  which  were  put  upon 
them  when  they  were  young." 

"  How  big  things  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  O,  I  don't  know  exactly  how  big.  The 
tree  will  make  an  effort  to  enclose  any  thing 
small  or  large.  Only,  if  it  is  very  large,  it 
will  take  a  great  while  to  enclose  it,  and  it 
might  be  so  large  that  it  never  could  enclose 
it." 

"  Well,  father,  how  large  must  it  be  so 
that  the  tree  never  could  enclose  it  ? " 

"  O,  I  don't  know,  exactly.  Once  I  saw 
b  3 


26  PRUNING. 

a  tree  that  was  growing  very  near  a  rock. 
After  a  time  it  came  in  contact  with  it,  and 
it  grew  and  pressed  against  it,  until  the  rock 
crowded  into  the  wood.  Then  the  bark#  be- 
gan to  protrude  in  every  direction  along  the 
rock,  as  if  it  was  making  an  effort  to  spread 
out  and  take  the  rock  all  in.  But  I  don't 
think  it  will  ever  succeed ;  for  the  rock  was 
part  of  a  ledge  in  a  pretty  large  hill." 

"  What  a  silly  tree !  "  ^aid  Rollo. 

"  Father,  I  believe  I  will  try  the  experi- 
ment some  time,"  continued  Rollo,  after  a 
pause. 

"  Very  well,"  said  his  father. 

"  What  shall  I  put  into  the  tree  ?  "  asked 
Rollo. 

"You  might  put  in  a  cent,"  said  his  fa- 
ther, "  and  then,  if  it  should  get  fairly  en- 
closed, I  presume  the  tree  will  keep  it  safe 
for  you  a  good  many  years." 

Rollo  determined  to  do  it.  "  Then,"  said 
he,  "I  shall  never  be  out  of  money,  and 
that  will  be  excellent."  His  father  told  him 
that  he  must  make  a  small  cleft  in  the  bark 
and  wood,  with  a  chisel  and  mallet,  and 
then  drive  the  cent  in,  edgewise,  a  little 
way. 


PRUNING.  27 

So  Rollo  got  his  chisel- and  mallet,  and 
inserted  the  cent  according  to  his  father's 
directions,  and  by  that  time  there  were  a 
good  many  branches  and  twigs  on  the 
ground,  which  his  father  had  taken  off  from 
the  trees,  and  so  he  began  to  pick  them  up, 
and  put  them  into  his  wheelbarrow. 

They  went  on  working  together  for  some 
time,  and  talking  while  they  worked.  Rollo 
was  continually  asking  his  father  questions, 
and  his  father  sometimes  answered  them, 
and  sometimes  did  not,  but  was  silent  and 
thoughtful,  as  if  he  was  thinking  of  some- 
thing else.  But  whether  he  got  answers  or 
not,  Rollo  went  on  talking. 

"  Father,"  said  Rollo,  at  length,  after  a 
short  pause,  during  which  he  had  been 
busily  at  work  putting  twigs  into  his  wheel- 
barrow, "  Henry  has  got  a  very  interesting 
book." 

His  father  did  not  answer. 

UI  think  it  is  a  very  interesting  book 
indeed.  Should  not  you  like  to  read  it, 
father?" 

His  father  was  just  then  reaching  up  very 
high  to  saw  off  a  pretty  large  limb,  and 
he  paid    no   attention   to   what   Rollo   was 


28  PRUNING. 

saying.  So  Rollo  went  on  talking  half  to 
himself — 

"One  story  is  about  Aladdin  and  his 
lamp.  If  he  rubbed  his  lamp,  he  could 
have  whatever  he  wished  ;  something  would 
come,  I  have  forgotten  what  its  name  was, 
and  bring  him  whatever  he  asked  for." 

Just  then,  down  came  the  great  branch 
which  his  father  had  been  sawing  off, 
falling  from  its  place  on  the  tree  to  the 
ground. 

Rollo  looked  at  it  a  moment,  and  then, 
when  his  father  began  sawing  again,  he 
said, 

"  Should  not  you  like  such  a  lamp,  fa- 
ther?" 

"  Such  a  lamp  as  what,  my  son  ? "  said 
his  father. 

"Why,  such  a  one  as  Aladdin's:" 

"  Aladdin's !  why,  what  do  you  know  of 
Aladdin's  lamp  ?  " 

"  Why,  I  read  about  it  in  Henry's  story 
book,"  said  Rollo.  "  I  just  told  you,  fa- 
ther." 

"  Did  you  ?  "  said  his  father.  "  Won't 
you  just  hand  me  up  the  paint  brush  ?  " 

""Well,  father,"  said  Rollo,  as  he  handed 


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PRUNING.  31 

him  the  brush,  "don't  you  wish  you  had 
an  Aladdin's  lamp  ? " 

"  No,  not  particularly,"   said  his  father. 

"  O  father  !  "  exclaimed  Rollo,  with  sur- 
prise, "  I  am  sure  I  do.  Don't  you  wish 
J  had  such  a  lamp,  father  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  his  father. 

"  Why,  father,  I  really  think  I  could  do 
some  good  with  it.  For  instance,  I  could 
just  rub  my  lamp,  and  then  have  all  your 
trees  pruned  for  you,  at  once,  without  any 
further  trouble." 

"  But  that  would  not  be  worth  while  ;  for 
you  might  have  a  much  larger  and  better 
garden  than  this  made  at  once,  with  thou- 
sands of  trees,  bearing  delicious  fruit  ; 
and  ponds,  and  waterfalls,  and  beautiful 
groves." 

"  O,  so  I  could,"  said  Rollo. 

"  And,  then,  how  soon  do  you  think  you 
should  get  tired  of  it,  and  want  another? " 

"  O,  perhaps,  I  should  want  another  pretty 
soon ;  but  then  I  could  have  another,  you 
know." 

"  Yes,  and  how  long  do  you  think  you 
could  find  happiness,  in  calling  beautiful 
gardens  into  existence,  one  after  another  ?  " 


32  PRUNING. 

"  O,  I  don't  know  ;  —  a  good  while." 

"A  day?" 

"O,  yes,  father." 

" A  week?" 

« Why,  perhaps,  I  should  be  tired  in  a 
week." 

"  Then  all  your  power  of  receiving  enjoy- 
ment from  gardens  would  be  run  out  and 
exhausted  in  a  week  ;  whereas  mine,  without 
any  Aladdin's  lamp,  lasts  me  year  after  year, 
pleasantly  increasing  all  the  time  without 
eyev  reaching  satiety." 

"  What  is  satiety,  father  ? ' 

"  The  feeling  we  experience  when  we 
have  had  so  much  of  a  good  thing  that 
we  are  completely  tired  and  sick  of  it. 
If  I  should  give  a  little  child  as  much 
honey  as  he  could  eat,  or  let  him  play  all 
the  time,  or  buy  him  a  vast  collection  of 
pictures,  he  would  soon  get  tired  of  these 
things." 

"  O  father,  I  never  should  get  tired  of 
looking  at  pictures." 

"  I  think  you  would,"  said  his  father. 

Here  the  conversation  stopped  a  few 
minutes,  while  Rollo  went  to  wheel  away 
a  load  of  his  sticks.     Before  he  returned,  he 


PRUNING. 


33 


had  prepared  himself  to  renew  his  argument. 
He  said, 

"  Father,  even  if  I  did  get  tired  of  making 
beautiful  gardens,  1  could  then  do  something 
else  with  the  lamp,  and  that  would  give  me 
new  pleasure." 

"  Yes,  but  the  new  pleasure  would  be  run 
out  and  exhausted  just  as  soon  as  the  pleas- 
ure of  having  a  garden  would  have  been; 
so  that  you  would,  in  a  short  time,  be  sa- 
tiated with  every  thing,  and  become  com- 
pletely wretched  and  miserable." 

"  But,  father,"  said  Rollo,  after  being 
silent  a  little  while,  "  I  don't  think  I  should 
get  tired  of  my  beautiful  gardens  very  soon  : 
I  don't  think  I  should  get  tired  even  of 
looking  at  pictures  of  them." 

"  Should  you  like  to  try  the  experi- 
ment?" 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Rollo,  very  eagerly. 

Rollo's  father  had  a  great  many  books 
of  pictures  and  engravings  of  various  kinds 
in  his  library ;  and  sometimes  he  used  to 
allow  the  children  to  see  them,  but  only 
a  very  few  at  a  time.  They  had  not  yet 
seen  them  all.  He  only  allowed  them  to 
see  them  as  fast  as  they  had  time  to  ex- 


34  PRUNTNG. 

amine  them  thoroughly,  and  read  about 
them  and  understand  them.  But  now  he 
said  to  Rollo, 

"I  could  let  you  have  all  the  books  of 
prints  .and  engravings  I  have  got,  and  see 
them  all  at  one  time,  and  that  would  be 
giving  you  Aladdin's  lamp,  exactly,  so  far 
as  my  pictures  are  concerned." 

"  Well,"  said  Rollo,  clapping  his  hands. 

"But  then,  in  a  short  time,  you  would 
get  tired  of  looking  at  them;  you  would 
become  satiated,  and  would  in  fact  spoil 
the  whole  pleasure  by  attempting  to  enjoy  it 
too  fast.  But  then  I  think  it  would  perhaps 
do  you  good." 

"  How,  father  ? " 

"  Why,  by  teaching  you  the  value  of 
moderation,  and  the  uselessness  of  Alad- 
din's lamps  in  all  human  enjoyments.  It 
would  be  a  very  valuable  experiment  in 
intellectual  philosophy,  wjiich  I  think  it 
very  probable  might  be  of  use  to  you.  So, 
if  you  please,  you  may  try  it." 

"Well,  father,  I  am  sure  I  should  like 
to  see  the  pictures." 

"That  is  all  settled  then,"  said  his  fa 
ther  ;   "some  day  you  shall." 


35 


THE    GREAT    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE. 


Rollo  was  coming  home  one  morning  after 
having  been  away  on  an  errand,  and  he  saw 
a  large  wood  pile  near  Farmer  Crop  well's 
door.  Now  it  happened  that  Rollo  had  once 
been  on  a  journey  pretty  far  back  into  the 
country ;  it  was  at  the  time  when  Jonas 
told  him  and  Lucy  the  stories  related  in 
the  book  called  H  Jonas's  Stories."  On  that 
journey,  Jonas  had  one  day  told  him  that 
the  sap  of  the  maple-tree  was  sweet,  and 
had  let  him  taste  of  some,  where  it  oozed 
out  at  the  end  of  the  log.  Seeing  Farmer 
Cropwell's  wood  pile  reminded  Rollo  of 
this ;  and  he  thought  he  would  look  at  the 
ends  of  all  the  logs,  and  see  if  he  could  not 
find  some  drops  of  sweet  sap  there. 

But  he  could  not,  for  two  reasons : 
none  of  those  trees  were  maple-trees,  and 
then,  besides,  they  were  all  dry.  There  was 
no  sap  in  them  of  any  kind ;  at  least,  not 
enough  to  ooze  out.     While  Rollo  was  look- 


36    THE  GREAT  BEETLE  AND  WEDGE. 

ing  there,  one  of  Farmer  Cropwell's  large 
boys  came  out  with  an  axe  in  his  hand. 
He  rolled  out  a  pretty  large  log  of  wood, 
though  it  was  not  very  long,  and  struck  his 
axe  into  the  end  of  it,  as  if  he  was  going  to 
split  it. 

"  I  don't  believe  you  can  split  that  great 
log,"  said  Rollo. 

"  I  don't  expect  to  do  it  with  the  axe," 
said  the  boy,  as  he  left  the  axe  sticking  in 
the  log. 

"  How  then  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  I  have  got  beetle  and  wedges  here, 
round  behind  the  wood  pile." 

So  the  boy  went  to  another  side  of  the 
wood  pile,  and  brought  a  large  beetle  and 
an  iron  wedge.  When  he  got  back  to  his 
log,  he  started  out  the  axe  which  he  had  left 
sticking  into  it.  Then  Rollo  saw  that  the 
axe  had  made  a  little  indentation,  or  cleft, 
in  the  wood.  He  put  the  point  of  the  wedge 
into  this  cleft,  and  drove  it  in  a  very  little, 
with  a  few  light  blows  with  the  axe.  Then 
he  took  the  great  heavy  beetle,  and  began 
driving  the  wedge  in,  with  very  heavy 
blows. 

Presently,  Rollo  saw  a  little  crack  begin- 


THE    GREAT    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE.  37 

ning  to  extend  out  each  side  from  the  wedge. 
The  crack  ran  along  across  the  end  of  the 
log,  and  thence  down  the  side,  and  grew 
wider  and  wider  every  moment.  At  last,  the 
wedge  was  driven  in  as  far  as  it  would  go, 
and  still  the  log  was  not  split  open. 

"Now  stop,"  said  Rollo ;  "  I  will  put  a 
stick  in,  and  keep  the  crack  open,  while  you 
drive  the  wedge  in,  in  another  place." 

"O,  that  won't  do,"  said  the  boy;  "a 
stick  would  not  keep  it  open." 

"Why  not?"  said  Rollo. 

"  Because  it  is  not  solid  enough ;  the  sides 
of  the  cleft  draw-together  very  hard.  They 
would  crush  the  stick." 

Here  Rollo  put  his  hand  into  his  pocket, 
and  drew  out  a  walnut,  and  he  asked  the  boy 
if  it  would  crack  a  walnut. 

"  Try  it,"  said  the  boy. 

So  Rollo  put  the  walnut  into  the  crack. 
He  slipped  it  along  until  he  got  it  to  a  place 
where  the  crack  was  just  wide  enough  to  re- 
ceive it,  and  hold  it  steady.  He  left  it  there, 
and  then  the  boy  began  to  knock  out  the 
wedge. 

He  struck  it  first  upon  one  side,  and  then 
upon  the  other,  and  thus  gradually  worked  it 
4 


38    THE  GREAT  BEETLE  AND  WEDGE. 

out.  The  walnut  was  crushed  all  to  pieces. 
The  boy  then  drove  in  the  wedge  again,  so 
as  to  open  the  log  as  it  was  before.  He  then 
went  to  the  place  where  he  had  got  the 
beetle  and  wedge  at  first,  and  brought  a 
large  wooden  wedge  which  he  had  made  be- 
fore, and  began  to  put  that  into  the  crack, 
not  very  far  from  the  iron  wedge. 

"  This  will  keep  it  open,"  said  he. 

"  Yes,  I  think  it  will,"  said  Rollo.  "  But 
put  it  up  close  to  the  iron  wedge." 

"No,"  said  the  boy;  "for  then  I  can't 
knock  the  iron  wedge  out." 

So  the  boy  put  the  large  wooden  wedge 
in,  at  a  little  distance  from  the  iron  one,  and 
drove  it  in  rather  gently  with  the  beetle. 
This  opened  the  cleft  a  little  more,  so  that 
the  iron  wedge  came  out  pretty  easily. 

"  I  don't  see  what  makes  the  sides  of  the 
logs  draw  together  so  hard,"  said  Rollo. 

"  O,  they  can't  help  it,"  said  the  boy. 

"  That  is  no  reason,"  rejoined  Rollo.  "  I 
should  think  that,  after  the  log  is  once  split 
open,  it  would  stay  so.  If  I  split  a  piece 
of  wood  in  two  with  my  knife,  the  pieces 
don't  try  to  come  together  again." 

So  Rollo  began  to  examine  the  log,  and 


THE  GREAT  BEETLE  AND  WEDGE.    39 

to  look  into  the  cracks,  to  see  if  he  could  find 
out  what  it  was  that  made  the  parts  draw 
together  so  hard  as  to  crush  the  walnut. 
Presently,  he  observed  that  the  log  was  not 
split  open  from  end  to  end.  The  crack 
commenced  at  one  end,  and  extended  nearly 
towards  the  other,  but  not  quite ;  so  that  at 
this  other  end  the  log  was  solid  and  whole, 
just  as  it  always  had  been.  So  Rollo  per- 
ceived that  the  two  halves  being  joined  and 
held  together  firmly  here,  they  could  only 
be  separated  at  the  other  end  by  the  wedge 
springing  them  open,  and,  of  course,  by  their 
elasticity  they  tended  to  spring  together 
again.  Then  besides,  he  saw,  by  looking 
into  the  crack,  a  great  number  of  splinters, 
large  and  small,  which  extended  obliquely 
from  one  side  to  the  other,  and  bound  the 
two  sides  strongly  towards  each  other. 

By  this  time  the  boy  had  got  the  wedge 
knocked  out. 

"It  is  strange,"  said  Rollo,  " that  such  a 
small  wedge  will  split  such  a  tough  and 
solid  log." 

"  O,  not  very  strange,"  said  the  boy. 
"  You  see,"  he  continued,  taking  up  the 
wedge,  and  pointing  to  the  several  parts  as 


40  THE    GREAT    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE. 

he  explained  them,  "  you  see  here  at  this 
part,  where  it  enters  the  wood  it  is  sharp, 
and  the  sides  spread  out  each  way,  so  that, 
when  I  drive  it  in,  they  force  the  wood 
apart." 

"  Why  don't  they  have  the  back  of  the 
wedge  wider  still  ?  and  then  it  would  force 
the  wood  open  farther ;  and  then  you  would 
not  have  to  put  in  a  wooden  wedge  after- 
wards, —  so,"  he  added,  making  a  sign  with 
his  fingers.  He  put  the  tips  of  his  fingers 
together,  and  then  separated  his  hands,  so  as 
to  represent  a  very  blunt-shaped  wedge. 

"  Then  it  would  not  drive  in  so  easily," 
answered  the  boy.  "  Perhaps  I  could  not 
drive  it  in  at  all,  if  it  was  so  blunt." 

"  They  might  have  the  wedge  longer 
then,"  said  Rollo,  "and  then  it  would  be 
just  as  tapering,  and  yet  it  would  be  a  great 
deal  broader  at  the  back,  because  the  back 
would  be  farther  off." 

"  That  would  make  the  wedge  a  great 
deal  too  heavy.     It  would  not  drive." 

"Why,  yes,  it  would,"  said  Rollo. 

"  No,  it  would  not,"  said  the  boy.  "  It 
would  be  just  like  a  shoemaker's  lap-stone  ; 
pounding  it  would  hardly  move  it." 


THE    GREAT    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE.  41 

Rollo  did  not  understand  what  the  boy 
meant  by  what  he  said  about  the  shoe- 
maker's lap-stone ;  so  he  paused  a  moment, 
and  presently  he  said, 

"  I  don't  think  it  would  make  any  differ- 
ence, if  it  was  heavy.  And,  besides,  it 
might  be  made  of  wood,  and  that  wouldn't 
be  heavy." 

"  O,  wood  wouldn't  do,"  said  the  boy. 

Now  it  happened  that  while  they  had 
been  talking,  the  boy  had  gone  on  driving 
in  his  wooden  wedge  into  the  cleft  that  the 
iron  one  had  made,  and  it  had  been  gradually 
splitting  the  log  open  more  and  more.  So 
that  just  as  the  boy  was  saying  that  "a 
wooden  wedge  wouldn't  do,"  Rollo  was  actu- 
ally seeing  with  his  own  eyes  that  it  would 
do  ;  for  at  that  moment  the  boy  gave  the 
last  blow,  and  the  halves  of  the  log  came 
apart  and  fell  over,  one  to  one  side,  and  the 
other  to  the  other. 

"  Why,  there,"  said  Rollo,  "you  have 
split  the  log  open  with  a  wooden  wedge." 

"  O,  that  is  because  I  had  an  iron  one  in 
first,"  said  the  boy. 

"  What  difference  does  that  make  ?  "  said 
Rollo. 

J*  4# 


42    THE  GREAT  BEETLE  AND  WEDGE. 

"  A  great  deal  of  difference,"  said  the 
boy. 

"  But  what  difference  ?  "  persisted  Rollo. 

"  I  don't  know  exactly  what  difference," 
said  the  boy;  "  only  I  know  you  can't  do 
any  thing  with  a  wooden  wedge  until  you 
have  first  opened  a  seam  with  an  iron  one." 

Rollo  was  confident  that  it  could  not  pos- 
sibly make  any  difference  whether  a  wooden 
wedge  was  used  first  or  last.  The  boy  was 
sure  that  it  did,  though  he  could  not  tell 
why.  Finally,  they  determined  to  try  it ; 
so  the  boy  struck  his  axe  into  the  end  of  the 
next  log,  and  then  attempted  to  drive  in 
his  wooden  wedge.  But  he  did  not  succeed 
at  all.  The  wedge  would  not  stay.  Rollo 
told  him  that  he  did  not  strike  hard  enough. 
Then  he  struck  harder,  but  it  did  no  good. 
The  wedge  dropped  out  the  moment  he  let 
go  of  it,  and  on  taking  it  up,  they  found  that 
the  edge  of  it  was  bruised  and  battered ;  so 
that  even  Rollo  gave  up  all  hopes  of  making 
it  enter. 

"  Ah  !  "  said  the  boy,  taking  up  the  wedge, 
and  looking  at  it,  "now  I  know  what  the 
reason  is.     It  is  the  edge." 

"  Where  ?  "  said  Rollo.     "  Let  me  see." 


THE  GREAT  BEETLE  AND  WEDGE.    43 

"  Why,  when  there  is  no  crack,"  said  the 
boy,  "you  see  the  edge  of  the  wedge  comes 
against  the  solid  wood,  and  when  I  drive,  it 
only  bruises  and  batters  it ;  but  the  iron  is 
hard,  and  goes  in.  But  then,  when  a  crack 
is  made,  the  wedge  can  go  in  easily  ;  for  the 
edge  does  not  touch ;  then  only  the  sides 
rub  against  the  wood." 

"  How  ?  "  said  Rollo.  "  I  don't  under- 
stand." 

"I'll  show  you  in  a  minute,"  said  the 
boy.  So  he  took  the  iron  wedge,  and  went 
to  work  driving  it  into  the  log.  It  soon 
began  to  make  a  crack,  which  ran  along  the 
log,  and  opened  wider  and  wider.  When,  at 
length,  it  was  pretty  wide,  he  put  the  wooden 
wedge  in,  and  he  showed  Rollo  that  the 
edge  of  the  wedge  did  not  now  have  to  force 
its  way,  but  went  easily  into  the  crack,  and 
only  the  sides  came  in  contact  with  the 
two  parts  of  the  log  which  it  was  separa- 
ting. 

"That's  curious,"  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  boy. 

"  I  wish  I  had  a  little  beetle  and  weage, 
said  Rollo.     "  I  have  got  a  hammer.     That 
would  do  for  a  beetle,  if  I  only  had  a  wedge." 


44    THE  GREAT  BEETLE  AND  WEDGE. 

"O,  a  hammer  won't  do,"   said  the  boy. 

(t  Why  not  ?  Would  not  an  axe  do  as 
well  as  a  beetle  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  boy,  "  it  would  spoil  the 
axe  and  the  wedge  too." 

"How?"  asked  Rollo. 

"Why,  it  would  bruise  it  all  up,  —  hard 
iron  knocking  against  the  hard  iron." 

"  Would  it  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  farmer's  boy;  "it 
would  spoil  the  head  of  the  axe,  and  the 
head  of  the  wedge  too." 

"  Is  that  the  reason  why  they  make  a 
wooden  beetle  ? " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  boy  ;  "  and  they  put  iron 
rings  around  the  ends  to  keep  the  wood 
from  being  bruised  and  battered." 

"  O,  I  wish  I  had  a  little  beetle  and 
wedge  !  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Perhaps  you  might  make  one." 

"  O,  I  could  not  make  an  iron  wedge  — 
nor  the  beetle  rings." 

"  No,  but  you  might  make  wedges  of 
wood,  —  pretty  hard  wood  ;  that  would  do 
to  split  up  pieces  of  pine  boards,  and  then 
you  would  not  need  any  rings,  to  your 
beetle." 


THE  GREAT  BEETLE  AND  WEDGE.    45 

"Jonas  can  help  me,"  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  boy  ;  "  Jonas  will  know 
all  about  it." 

So  Rollo  set  out  to  go  home,  full  of  the 
idea  of  making  a  wooden  beetle  and  wedge, 
so  as  to  split  up  pieces  of  boards.  He  de- 
termined, in  case  he  should  succeed,  to  make 
a  smaller  one  still  for  Thanny. 


46 


THE  LITTLE  BEETLE  AND  WEDGE. 


When  Rollo  got  home,  he  looked  about 
for  Jonas  every  where,  but  could  not  find 
him.  He  went  around  the  house  and  yard, 
calling  "Jonas!  Jonas!"  very  loud.  Pres- 
ently Nathan  came  out  to  the  door,  and  told 
him  that  his  mother  wanted  to  see  him. 
So  Rollo  went  in  to  his  mother. 

"  You  ought  not  to  make  such  a  noise," 
said  she,  "  calling  Jonas.  You  disturb  us 
all." 

"  But,  mother,"  saio!  he,  "  I  want  to  find 
him  very  much." 

"  No  doubt,"  said  his  mother  ;  "  but  you 
must  find  him  with  your  eyes,  not  with  your 
tongue." 

"Why,  mother,"  said  Rollo,  laughing, 
"  what  do  you  mean  by  that  ? " 

"  Boys  very  generally  have  a  habit  ot 
trying  to  find  people  with  their  tongues, 
that  is,  by  calling  them  ;  but  it  is  a  very 
bad  habit.     You  see,"  she  continued,  "there 


THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE.         47 

are  five  or  six  persons  now  in  and  about  the 
house,  and  if  you  go  around  calling  out  for 
Jonas,  vou  disturb  us  all ;  but  if  you  go 
about  quietly,  and  look  for  him,  you  do  not 
disturb  any  body." 

"  But  then  it  is  not  so  easy  to  find  him  by 
looking  for  him,"  said  Rollo. 

"  Why  not  ?  "  asked  his  mother. 

"  Because,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  can  call  out 
for  him,  in  a  moment,  in  the  yard,  and  then 
if  he  is  any  where  within  hearing,  he 
answers  ;  and  so  I  know  where  he  is.  But 
it  would  take  me  some  time  to  go  to  all  the 
places  that  are  within  hearing." 

u  True,"  said  his  mother,  "I  see  it  is 
more  trouble  to  find  any  body  with  your 
eyes,  than  with  your  voice  ;  but  then  it  is  so 
much  pleasanter  for  all  the  rest  of  us,  that 
you  must  submit  to  it." 

So  Rollo  went  away  again  to  look  for 
Jonas.  He  inquired  of  Dorothy  in  the 
kitchen,  and  she  told  him  that  she  saw  Jonas 
going  out  towards  the  barn  a  few  minutes 
before.  So  Rollo  went  off  in  pursuit  of 
him. 

He  found  him  at  work  in  a  little  back 


48         THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE. 

room  in  the  barn,  looking  over  some  har- 
nesses. 

"  What  are  you  doing,  Jonas  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  I  am  overhauling  these  harnesses,  to  get 
them  all  ready  for  winter." 

u  For  winter  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"Yes,"  replied  Jonas  ;  "  they  are  sleigh- 
harnesses." 

"  Well,  Jonas,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  wanted  to 
see  you  about  a  beetle  and  wedge.  Do  you 
think  you  could  help  me  about  making  a 
little  beetle  and  wedge  ?  " 

"  I  can  help  you  by  my  advice,"  said 
Jonas. 

"  O,  but  I  want  you  to  help  me  make 
them." 

Then  Jonas  asked  Rollo  what  made  him 
think  of  a  beetle  and  wedge  ;  and  Rollo  told 
him  of  the  conversation  he  had  held  with 
the  farmer's  boy.  Then  Jonas  talked  a  long 
time  about  it,  giving  him  particular  advice 
and  direction  about  the  plan,  though  he 
said  he  could  not  himself  go  and  help  him 
then,  for  he  could  not  leave  his  harnesses. 

The  advice  which  Jonas  gave  him  was, 
substantially,  this :  — 


THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE.         49 

"  The  boy  was  right  in  what  he  said 
about  the  necessity  of  having  iron  wedges, 
to  split  up  large  logs  of  hard  wood ;  but  you 
had  better  have  short  pieces  of  pine  boards 
for  your  logs,  and  then  wedges  of  hard  wood 
will  do  instead  of  iron  ;  for  hard  wood  is  so 
much  more  solid  than  pine,  that  I  think 
wedges  of  it  will  answer  very  well.  There 
are  some  pieces  of  walnut  under  the  bench, 
which  will  do  finely,  and  I  will  give  you 
one  of  them." 

"  I'll  go,  now,  and  get  it,"  said  Rollo. 

"No,"  said  Jonas,  " not  yet;  let  me  tell 
you  about  making  the  beetle." 

So  Rollo  stood  in  the  door  way,  waiting 
to  hear  what  Jonas  had  to  say  about  the 
beetle,  but  evidently  quite  impatient  to  go. 

"  If  you  make  your  wedges  of  hard  wood, 
it  will  not  be  necessary  to  have  iron  rings 
to  your  beetle,  because  it  will  not  get  bat- 
tered much,  in  driving  wooden  wedges. 
Now  you  must  go  to  the  wood  pile,  and  look 
out  a  piece  of  round  wood,  about  as  large 
round  as  my  arm,  and  bore  a  hole  in  it." 

"  A  hole  in  it !  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,  a  small  auger  hole,  to  put  the 
handle  into.  Than  you  must  put  the  wood 
c    .5 


50         THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE. 

into  the  saw-horse,  and  saw  off  the  ends, 
at  a  little  distance  from  the  hole,  so  that, 
when  the  handle  is  put  in,  it  will  be  like 
a  mallet. " 

"  A  mallet !  "  said  Rollo.  "  But  I  wanted 
a  beetle." 

"  Well,  a  mallet  is  a  small  beetle,  without 
rings." 

"  Is  it  ?  "  said  Rollo,  thoughtfully. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Jonas  ;  "  and  if  you  worK 
slowly  and  carefully,  I  think  you  can  make 
a  pretty  good  one  yourself." 

Rollo  thought  so  too,  and  away  he  ran 
to  make  the  experiment.  Under  the  great 
work  bench,  he  found,  among  a  quantity  of 
boards  and  bits  of  wood,  a  number  of  long 
bars  of  walnut,  which  Jonas  had  split  out 
from  the  wood  pile  to  keep  for  handles.  He 
took  one  of  these,  and  carried  it  off  to  the 
shed,  to  look  for  the  saw  and  the  hatchet. 

The  first  thing  was,  as  he  supposed,  to 
saw  off  a  piece  of  the  wood  just  long  enough 
for  a  wedge.  But  in  this  he  was  mistaken. 
[n  doing  any  piece  of  work  of  this  kind,  it 
s  always  very  important  to  consider  which 
part  it  is  best  to  do  first.  Rollo  did  not 
ihink  of  this,  and  so  he  marked  off  a  piece 


THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE.         51 

of  the  walnut  wood  about  long  enough  for 
a  wedge,  and  then  sawed  it  off. 

"Now,"  said  he,  "I  must  make  the  sides 
smooth,  and  sharpen  it." 

So  he  took  the  piece  of  wood  in  his  hand, 
and  put  one  end  of  it  down  upon  a  large  log 
of  wood,  and  then  attempted  to  smooth  and 
sharpen  it,  as  he  had  seen  Jonas  sharpen  a 
stake.  But  he  could  not  succeed  very  well. 
The  wood  was  very  hard,  and  he  could 
not  cut  it.  Then  it  was  so  short  that  it 
was  almost  impossible  to  hold  it.  At  almost 
every  blow  of  the  hatchet  it  slipped  out  of 
his  hand ;  and  then,  besides,  he  was  very 
much  afraid  of  cutting  his  fingers;  so  that, 
after  working  laboriously  for  some  time, 
he  came  back  to  Jonas  in  despair,  holding 
his  wedge  in  his  hands,  which,  however, 
instead  of  being  properly  sharpened,  was 
only  rounded  off  a  little  at  the  corners. 

"  O  dear  me!"  said  he  to  Jonas,  as  he 
came  up  to  him  with  the  intended  wedge  in 
his  hands,  "  I  can't  make  a  wedge  at  all. 
It's  no  use  to  try."  Then  he  explained  to 
Jonas  the  difficulties  that  he  had  met  with. 

"  True,"  said  Jonas  ;  "  I  see.  I  advise 
you  to  give  it  up." 


52         THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE. 

"  Yes,"  said  Rollo,  "  the  wood  is  so  hard." 

61  O,  no,"  said  Jonas :  "  that  is  no  great 
trouble — you  could  easily  manage  that." 

"  But  then  I  can't  hold  it." 

"  That  is  of  no  consequence  either.  I 
could  tell  you  a  way  to  hold  it  well  enough." 

"  What  is  the  reason,  then,  why  you  think 
I  had  better  give  up  ?  " 

"  Because  you  have  not  patience  enough." 

Rollo  stood  silent  and  thoughtful  as  Jonas 
said  this,  with  his  piece  of  wood  in  one 
hand,  and  his  hatchet  in  the  other. 

'( It  takes  a  great  deal  of  patience  to 
make  a  thing  which  we  never  made  before." 

"Why?"  said  Rollo. 

u  O,  because  there  are  always  unforeseen 
difficulties.  We  don't  know  exactly  how  to 
do  it,  and  are  apt  to  make  mistakes  ;  and  so 
we  spoil  some  of  our  work,  and  this  makes 
us  impatient  and  fretful." 

"  But  I  could  not  help  coining  to  you," 
said  Rollo,  w  when  I  found  I  could  not 
sharpen  my  wedge." 

"  I  did  not  blame  you  for  coming  to  me," 
said  Jonas. 

"  But  you  said  I  was  impatient." 

"Yes,   but    not   for   coming   to    me — I 


THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE.         53 

judged  by  your  looks  and  tone  of  voice. 
Now  if  you  can  keep  good-natured  and 
pleasant,  so  as  to  go  on  steadily  and  patiently, 
difficulties  or  no  difficulties.  I  will  help  you 
by  my  advice ;  otherwise,  I  think  you  had 
better  give  up  the  plan." 

Rollo  stood  a  few  minutes  leaning  on  the 
door,  and  swinging  it  back  and  forth  a  little. 
He  seemed  to  be  in  doubt  whether  to  be 
good-natured  or  not.  At  length,  the  better 
feelings  triumphed,  and  he  said, 

"  Well,  Jonas  I  will  try.  How  can  I  hold 
my  wedge  while  I  sharpen  it  ?  " 

"  You  must  not  saw  it  off  until  it  is  all 
sharpened  and  smoothed.  By  tljat  means, 
you  see,  the  long  end  of  the  stick,  that  you 
make  it  from,  will  serve  for  a  handle." 

"  So  it  will,"  said  Rollo  ;  "  I  never  thought 
of  that." 

So  Rollo  went  off  in  pursuit  of  the  stick 
from  which  he  had  sawed  off  his  first  wedge, 
intending  to  make  another  upon  the  end  of 
it,  and  then  saw  it  off  when  it  was  all  ready. 

He   found   that   now   he  could  hold  his 

wood  very  easily,  and  there  was  no  danger 

of  cutting  his  fingers.     So  he  could  strike 

much   heavier  blows.     He   soon  sharpened 

5* 


54         THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE. 

his  wedge,  and  then  carried  it  to  Jonas  to 
ask  him  if  he  thought  it  would  do. 

"No,"  said  Jonas,  "I  don't  think  it  will 
do,  very  well." 

"  Won't  it  ?  "  asked  Rollo,  looking  some- 
what disappointed. 

"  Why,  you  see  the  sides  are  not  smooth  ; 
and  then  you  have  not  sharpened  it  uniform- 
ly. You  have  cut  away  more  at  the  corners 
than  you  have  in  the  middle,  so  that  it  is 
thicker  in  the  middle.  That  is  the  way 
that  boys  always  sharpen  wedges." 

"Why  do  they?"  asked  Rollo. 

u.  I  suppose  it  is  because  it  is  easier  to  cut 
away  at  the  edges,  and  so  they  get  more  off 
there.  Now  you  had  better  get  your  wedge 
as  true,  and  perfect,  and  smooth  as  you  can, 
before  you  saw  it  off.  It  will  be  a  great  deal 
pleasanter  to  work  with  a  good  wedge  than 
with  a  poor  one,  and  so  you  had  better 
take  pains  with  it,  and  make  as  perfect  a 
one  as  you  can,  if  you  make  any." 

"  But,  Jonas,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  can  smooth 
it  and  finish  it,  after  I  get  it  sawed  off." 

"  Not  half  as  easily  as  you  can  now,"  said 
Jonas. 

During  all  this  time  Jonas  kept  on  with 


THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE.  55 

his  own  work ;  and  now  he  said  no  more, 
and  seemed  disposed  to  leave  Rollo  to  his 
own  decision. 

Rollo  walked  slowly  back  to  *the  shed. 
He  longed  to  have  his  wedge  done  ;  but  then 
Jonas  had  often  told  him  before,  that  if  he 
was  attempting  to  make  any  thing,  it  was 
best  to  take  pains  with  it,  and  make  it  as 
complete  and  perfect  as  possible,  and  then 
he  would  prize  it  more,  and  take  more  pleas- 
ure in  it,  when  it  was  done.  Rollo  knew 
that  this  was  good  advice,  though,  like 
almost  all  other  boys,  he  was  always  in  such 
a  hurry  to  finish  any  thing  that  he  under- 
took, and  to  have  it  ready  for  use,  that  he 
did  not  like  to  take  the  necessary  pains. 

On  reflection,  however,  he  concluded  to 
take  Jonas's  advice ;  and  he  accordingly  be- 
gan to  smooth  the  sides  of  his  wedge  again 
with  the  hatchet.  He  did  it  slowly  and 
carefully ;  and  after  some  time  he  found 
that  he  had  got  the  wedge  into  a  much  more 
perfect  shape  than  before.  He  then  carried 
it  to  Jonas  again. 

Now  Jonas  approved  it  very  much,  but 
told  him  that  he  had  better  smooth  it  a  little 
more  with  his  knife  before  sawing  it  off. 


56         THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE. 

Rollo  did  so;  and  then  he  carried  it  back 
to  the  horse,  and  sawed  it  off  at  the  right 
distance,  and  it  made  an  excellent  wedge. 
The  edges,  at  the  head  of  the  wedge,  were 
left  somewhat  rough  by  the  saw.  These, 
however,  he  trimmed  off  with  his  knife,  and 
then  carried  the  wedge  to  Jonas. 

"  Very  well,"  said  Jonas ;  "  now  you 
want  one  more." 

"  One  more  ?  "  said  Rollo.  "  No,  I  want 
my  beetle  next." 

"No,"  said  Jonas,  "  one  more  wedge. 
Make  all  your  wedges  first." 

"  Why,  Jonas,  you  see,  if  I  make  my 
beetle  next,  I  can  try  it  with  this  wedge,  and 
then  I  can  make  another,  if  I  want  it,  after- 
wards." 

"No,"  replied  Jonas,  "that  is  not  a  good 
way.  You  ought  to  finish  up  your  appa- 
ratus all  complete,  before  you  try  it  at  all. 
Then  you  will  take  a  great  deal  more  pleas- 
ure in  trying  it.  Besides,  if  you  get  to 
work  splitting  up  your  wood,  you  will  not 
want  to  leave  it,  and  go  to  making  a  new 
wedge  then.     Now  is  the  time  to  do  it." 

Rollo  felt  very  desirous  to  make  his  beetle 
first,  so  as   "just  to  try  it  a  little,"  as  he 


THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE.         57 

said.  Still,  he  had  so  often  found,  when 
he  had  not  followed  Jonas's  advice,  that  he 
wras  sorry  for  it  afterwards,  that  he  con- 
cluded to  make  another  wedge  now.  He 
accordingly  went  to  work  again,  and  having 
learned  how  to  do  it  by  his  practice  upon 
the  first  one,  he  succeeded  very  easily,  and 
finished  it  much  quicker  than  he  did  before. 

Then  he  went  to  work  upon  his  beetle. 
He  selected  a  round  stick  of  wood,  of  about 
the  right  size,  and  then  examined  it  carefully 
to  find  the  part  which  was  most  uniform  and 
regular  in  its  shape  ;  and  he  bored  a  hole  for 
the  handle  in  the  middle  of  this  part.  He 
made  his  handle  of  pine  wood,  for  this  was 
much  easier  to  cut,  and  Jonas  told  him  he 
thought  it  would  do  nearly  as  well.  When 
the  handle  was  finished,  he  drove  it  into  the 
hole,  and  then  he  sawed  off  the  ends  of  the 
stick  of  wood  at  the  right  distances  from  the 
hole.  He  first  took  pains  to  measure  on 
each  side,  so  as  to  have  the  distances  exactly 
the  same. 

When  this  was  done,  he  had  quite  a  pretty 
little  mallet.  That  is,  it  was  made  very 
much  like  a  carpenter's  mallet ;  still,  as  a 
mallet  is  made  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of 


58 


THE    LITTLE    BEETLE    AND    WEDGE. 


driving  a  chisel,  and  this  was,  on  the  other 
hand,  only  intended  to  be  used  for  splitting 
wood  with  a  wedge,  Jonas  told  him  he 
thought  it  would  be  strictly  proper  to  call  it 
a  little  beetle.  He  worked  so  slowly  and 
carefully,  however,  in  doing  all  this,  that  the 
afternoon  had  entirely  passed  away  when  he 
got  the  beetle  and  the  wedges  done;  and 
just  when  he  was  thinking  that  he  was 
ready  to  try  them,  he  saw  Dorothy  at  the 
kitchen  door,  ringing  the  bell  to  call  him  in 
to  tea. 


69 


SPLITTING. 

When  play  time  came  the  next  day,  Rollo 
ran  after  Nathan  to  show  him  his  beetle  and 
wedges,  and  to  get  him  to  go  out  and  see 
him  i  split '  with  them.  Nathan  trotted  along 
after  him,  very  much  pleased. 

Rollo  had  his  beetle  in  one  hand,  and  his 
two  wedges  in  the  other,  and,  as  he  walked 
along,  he  looked  over  his  shoulder  towards 
Nathan,  who  was  following  him,  and  talked 
to  him  by  the  way,  explaining  to  him  some- 
thing about  his  beetle  and  wedges. 

"  You  see  I  am  going  to  split,  Thanny. 
I  am  going  to  split  some  kindling  wood  for 
Dorothy.  I  shall  put  my  wedges  into  the 
wood,  and  then  drive  them  in  with  my  bee- 
tle, and  that  will  make  the  wood  split  open 
more  and  more ;  and  perhaps  I  will  let  you 
split  a  little,  Thanny." 

By  this  time  Rollo  had  got  out  to  the 
shed,  and  he  put  his  beetle  and  wedges 
down  upon  the  floor,  while  he  went  away 


60  SPLITTING. 

to  get  some  boards  to  split.  There  were 
some  old  boards  behind  the  barn,  which 
Jonas  told  him  were  to  be  split  up  to  burn, 
and  from  these  he  chose  one,  which  was  not 
very  long,  and  dragged  it  to  the  shed.  He 
placed  this  upon  the  saw-horse,  and  then 
sawed  off  a  piece  from  one  end,  about  as  long 
as  he  thought  it  would  be  well  to  have  the 
sticks  of  kindling  wood.  After  he  had  sawed 
off  one  piece,  he  was  going  to  split  it  up,  but 
then  he  reflected  that  it  would  be  more 
systematic  and  workmanlike  to  finish  his 
sawing  first.  So  he  sawed  off  another,  and 
another  piece,  until  the  board  was  all  sawed 
up  into  short  pieces.  He  placed  these  to- 
gether neatly  in  a  pile,  and  then  taking  one 
of  them,  he  sat  down  upon  the  floor,  with 
Thanny,  and  prepared  to  try  his  beetle  and 
wedges. 

"  Now,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  think  I  must  have 
a  knife.  —  some  old  knife  or  other,  —  to  make 
a  little  place  to  drive  my  wedge  in.  Than- 
ny, why  can't  you  go  and  ask  Dorothy  to 
let  me  have  a  knife  ?  Come,  that's  a  gpod 
boy." 

So  Nathan  got  up  off  of  the  floor,  where 
he  had  been  sitting  by   Rollo's    side,    and 


SPLITTING.  63 

went  in  for  a  knife.  In  a  few  minutes  he 
came  out,  and  asked  Rollo  if  a  broken  one 
would  do.  He  had  brought  out  a  broken 
knife.  The  handle  was  whole  and  strong, 
but  the  blade  was  broken  in  two,  about  in 
the  middle. 

"  Why,  yes,"  said  Rollo,  taking  the  knife 
and  looking  at  it,  u\  believe  that  will  do. 

"Yes,"  he  continued,  "I  shall  like  this 
better,  for  I  can  keep  this  all  the  time,  with 
my  wedges.  And  besides,  I  believe  that  I 
can  drive  it  better." 

So  Rollo  held  the  edge  of  the  knife  to  the 
end  of  the  board,  and  then  drove  it  in  a  little 
way,  with  his  little  beetle.  This  made  a 
small  opening  or  cleft  in  the  angle  or  edge 
of  the  board  at  one  end.  Then  he  began  to 
drive  in  his  wooden  wedge,  telling  Nathan 
to  look  carefully  and  see  when  it  began  to 
split.  Nathan  stood  near  him,  stooping 
down,  with  his  hands  upon  his  knees,  and 
looking  on  with  great  attention. 

Rollo  drove  in  his  wedge,  and  it  proceeded 
idmirably.  The  wood  soon  began  to  crack, 
ind  the  crack  gradually  extended  almost  to 
the  end  of  the  board.  When  he  had  driven 
it  in  pretty  far,  he  told  Nathan  to  see  how  he 


64  SPLITTING. 

was  going  to  manage  with  his  second  wedge. 
He  was  now  very  glad  that  he  had  followed 
Jonas's  advice,  and  made  the  second  wedge 
before  trying  the  first.  He  inserted  the 
second  wedge  in  the  crack,  and  drove  it  in. 
This  forced  the  wood  open  more,  and 
loosened  the  first  wedge,  so  that  he  could 
easily  get  it  out  again, .and  very  soon  the 
board  was  split  entirely  in  two.  Nathan 
was  very  much  delighted  with  the  whole 
operation. 

In  the  same  manner,  Rollo  split  two  or 
three  other  pieces  off  from  his  board,  and 
then  Nathan  wanted  him  to  let  him  split 
one.  Rollo  was  at  first  somewhat  unwilling 
to  let  his  little  beetle  go  out  of  his  hand  at 
all,  he  was  so  interested  in  using  it ;  but 
considering  that  it  would  give  Nathan  a 
good  deal  of  pleasure,  he  concluded  to  let 
him  try  it  once. 

"  I  will  start  it  for  you,  Thanny,"  said  he. 
And  he  accordingly  made  a  small  cleft  by 
driving  in  his  knife ;  and  then  he  inserted 
the  wedge,  and  drove  that  in  too,  just  far 
enough  to  start  the  crack,  and  enable  the 
wood  to  retain  the  wedge.  Nathan  then 
took  the  beetle,  and  pounded  away. 


SPLITTING.  65 

He  found  that  he  could  not  strike  such 
heavy  blows  as  Rollo  could,  and  yet  the 
wedge  gradually  penetrated  farther  and  far- 
ther, and  the  crack  opened  wider  and  wider, 
to  Nathan's  great  delight.  Rollo  was  him- 
self gratified  to  see  how  much  his  little 
brother  was  pleased  with  his  beetle  and 
wedges.  When  the  first  wedge  was  driven 
fully  in,  he  handed  him  the  other,  and 
showed  Kim  how  to  insert  that  into  the  crack 
made  by  the  first  wedge,  at  a  little  distance 
from  it.  Nathan  then  drove  in  the  second 
wedge,  and  this  soon  finished  the  work,  for  it 
split  the  piece  off  entirely,  and  Nathan  took 
it  up,  and  looked  at  it,  very  much  pleased  at 
what  he  had  done. 

"  Now,"  said  Rollo,  "give  me  the  beetle 
again." 

"  No,"  said  Nathan,  "  I  want  to  split  some 
more." 

"  O,  no,"  said  Rollo,  in  a  tone  of  good- 
humored  expostulation;  "no;  it  is  my 
beetle  and  wedge.  I  let  you  have  it  to  split 
one  stick  off ;  but  now  you  ought  to  let  me 
have  it  again,  immediately." 

"No,"  said  Nathan,  "  I  want  to  split  some 
more." 

c*  6* 


66  SPLITTING. 

Rollo  took  up  the  two  wedges,  and  would 
not  let  Nathan  have  them,  and  Nathan  held 
the  beetle  away  behind  him  so  that  Rollo 
should  not  have  that.  Thus  they  seemed  to 
be  in  inextricable  difficulty.  Rollo  did  not 
know  what  to  do. 

"  Nathan,"  said  he,  at  length,  after  a  pause, 
"  give  me  my  beetle." 

"  No,"  said  Nathan,  "  /  want  to  split." 

"  O,  dear  me!"  said  Rollo,  with  a  sigh. 

At  first,  he  thought  that  he  would  take 
the  beetle  away  from  Nathan  by  force ; 
but  he  reflected  in  a  moment  that  this  would 
be  wrong,  and  so  finally  he  concluded  to 
go  and  state  the  case  to  his  mother. 

So  he  rose,  and  began  to  walk  away, 
saying, 

"Well,  Nathan,  I  mean  to  go  and  tell 
mother,  that  you  won't  let  me  have  my 
beetle." 

Then  Nathan,  whose  conscience  secretly 
reproved  him  for  what  he  was  doing,  pulled 
the  beetle  round  from  behind  him,  and  threw 
it  down  upon  the  floor,  where  Rollo  had  been 
sitting.  This  was  wrong.  It  was  a  very 
ill-natured  way  of  giving  it  up.  If  he  was 
satisfied   that   he  was  wrong,  he   ought  to 


SPLITTING.  67 

have  handed  it  to  Rollo  pleasantly.  Instead 
of  that,  he  threw  it  down,  with  a  sullen  look, 
and  sat  still. 

Then  Rollo,  thinking  that  it  was  now 
no  longer  necessary  to  go  and  trouble  his 
mother  with  the  difficulty,  began  to  return. 
As  he  came  back,  he  said,  in  a  kind  and 
soothing  tone, 

"  Now,  you  are  a  good  boy,  Nathan.  That 
is  right  —  to  give  me  back  my  beetle.  Now 
I  will  let  you  split  again,  some  time." 

But  Rollo  was  mistaken  in  supposing  that 
Nathan  was  a  good  boy.  Boys  are  not  good 
until  their  hearts  are  right.  WJien  a  child 
has  something  which  he  ought  not  to  have, 
it  is  not  enough  for  him  to  throw  it  down 
upon  the  floor,  sullenly,  because  he  is  afraid 
to  have  his  father  or  mother  told  that  he  has 
got  it.  He  ought  to  give  it  up  pleasantly, 
and  feel  that  it  is  right  that  he  should  do  so. 
If  Nathan  had  said  to  himself,  "  I  ought  not 
to  keep  this  beetle,  for  it  is  not  mine  — it  is 
Rollo's  ;  he  made  it,  and  he  has  been  kind 
enough  to  lend  it  to  me,  and  now  I  ought  to 
be  willing  to  give  it  back  to  him  pleasantly 
again  ;  "  and  then  had  given  it  to  him  with 
a  pleasant  countenance,  —  that  would  have 


68  SPLITTING. 

been  really  being  a  good  boy.  But  to  throw 
it  down  in  a  pet,  because  he  was  afraid  to 
have  Rollo  complain  to  his  mother,  was  very 
far  from  being  like  a  good  boy. 

However,  it  was  very  kind  in  Rollo  to 
speak  soothingly  and  pleasantly  to  Nathan  ; 
though,  if  he  had  reflected  how  much  good- 
ness depends  upon  the  state  of  the  heart,  he 
would  not  have  supposed  that  Nathan  was  yet 
a  good  boy.  In  fact,  when  he  saw  that  Rollo 
was  coming  back  again,  and  was  not  going 
to  his  mother,  after  standing  still,  looking 
quite  sullen  for  a  moment,  he  suddenly 
stooped  down,  seized  Rollo's  knife,  and  ran 
off  with  it  out  into  the  yard. 

Rollo  instantly  pursued  him,  calling  out, 
"Nathan!  bring  back  my  knife;  Nathan, 
Nathan  !  give  me  my  knife." 

Nathan,  however,  ran  on,  though  Rollo 
ran  the  fastest,  and  was  rapidly  overtaking 
him  ;  and  just  at  the  instant  before  he  reach- 
ed him,  Nathan's  foot  tripped ;  he  fell,  and 
as  he  threw  forward  his  hands  to  try  to  save 
himself,  they  came  down  upon  the  ground, 
and  his  forehead  struck  the  corner  of  the 
knife  blade.     He  immediately  screamed  out 


SPLITTING.  69 

with  pain  and  terror.  Dorothy,  alarmed  by 
his  cries,  came  out,  took  him  up  in  her  arms, 
and  carried  him  into  the  house. 

She  took  him  to  the  table,  and  began  to 
bathe  the  wounded  forehead  in  cold  water. 
This  was  what  she  always  did  when  the 
children  got  cut  or  scratched,  or  hurt  in  any 
such  way.  It  prevents  inflammation.  She 
saw  that  Nathan  was  not  hurt  much,  though 
he  continued  to  cry  very  loud.  His  crying 
was,  however,  partly  from  pain,  and  partly 
from  Vexation. 

In  a  few  minutes,  Rollo's  mother  came 
down  stairs  to  see  what  was  -  the  matter. 
Rollo  thought  that  his  mother  might  suppose 
that  he  had  hurt  Nathan,  and  so  he  began  to 
explain  at  once  how  it  happened.  But  his 
mother  held  up  her  hand  to  him,  as  a  signal 
for  him  to  be  silent.  She  knew  that  it  was 
then  no  time  to  ascertain  the  facts. 

She  came  up  and  looked  at  Nathan's  fore- 
Tiead  a  moment,  and  she  saw  that  it  was 
not  much  hurt.  Besides,  she  knew,  by  the 
sound  of  Nathan's  cries,  that  they  did  not 
proceed  from  much  pain.  She  therefore  said 
to  him,  gently, 

"  Stop  crying,  Nathan  !  " 


70  SPLITTING. 

Now  Nathan  knew  that  his  mother  did  not 
tell  him  not  to  cry,  except  when  she  was 
sure  that  he  could  control  himself  if  he  chose 
to  do  so ;  and  he  also  knew  that  she  pun- 
ished him  if  he  did  not  obey.  So  he  began 
immediately  to  repress  his  sobs  and  cries, 
and  very  soon  became  still.  She  then  put 
a  small  plaster,  of  some  sort,  upon  his  fore- 
head, and  then  carried  him  up  stairs  and  laid 
him  on  the  bed. 

"  There,"  said  she,  "  Thanny,  lie  still 
there  a  little  while,  till  your  forehead  has 
done  aching,  and  you  get  pleasant  again  ; 
then  you  may  get  up,  and  come  to  me." 

Then  she  went  to  her  work  again,  and 
Rollo  came  and  stood  by  her  side,  and  told 
her  the  whole  story. 

"  Nathan  did  wrong,"  said  she;  "  but  it 
would  have  been  better  for  you  not  to  have 
run  after  him." 

"  Why,  mother,"  said  Rollo,  "he  was  run- 
ning away  with  my  knife  ;  and  I  can't  split 
at  all  without  my  knife.  One  thing  I 
know,  —  I  shall  not  let  him  split  any  more 
with  my  beetle  and  wedges." 

"  That  would  be  one  way  to  treat  him," 


SPLITTING.  71 

said  his  mother  ;  "hut  there  is  another  thing 
you  might  do,  if  you  chose." 

"  What,  mother  ?  "  asked  Rollo. 

M  Why,  make  him  a  beetle  and  wedge,  for 
his  own."  » 

"  Why.  mother  !  "  said  Rollo,  with  sur- 
prise. 

"Yes,"  said  she.  "You  might  make  him 
one.  Think  how  pleased  he  would  be  with 
it.  Then  he  could  sit  down  with  you,  and 
you  could  both  be  splitting  together." 

"  But,  seems  to  me,  mother,  that  that 
would  be  rewarding  him  for  being  a  naughty 
boy." 

"  It  would  be  so,  if  you  were  to  make  him 
a  beetle  and  wedge,  because  he  was  a  bad 
boy  ;  but  I  proposed  that  you  should  make 
it  for  another  reason,  that  is,  to  please 
him." 

"  But  perhaps  he  would  think  I  did  it 
because  he  ran  away  with  my  knife,"  said 
Rollo. 

"  I  don't  think  there  is  any  danger  that  he 
would  imagine  that  you  did  it  as  a  reward 
for  that,"  replied  his  mother. 
Here  Rollo  paused  a  moment.     He  did 


72  SPLITTING. 

not  feel  quite  ready  to  undertake  to  make 
Nathan  a  beetle  and  wedges  ;  but  he  did  not 
know  exactly  how  to  reply  to  his  mother's 
reasoning.  At  length  he -said,  in  a  timid 
and  hesitating  voice,  , 

"  But,  mother,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  would 
be  better  to  punish  Nathan,  rather  than  re- 
ward him,  or  do  any  thing  which  would 
seem  like  rewarding  him  for  acting  so." 

"  That  may  be  true,"  said  his  mother. 
"And  it  is  true,  also,  that  if  you  should 
refuse  to  let  him  split  wood  any  more  with 
your  wedges,  it  would  be  punishing  him ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  if  you  should  make 
him  a  little  beetle  and  wedge  of  his  own,  it 
would  be  forgiving  him.  Now  I  do  not  say 
that  he  ought  not  to  be  punished ;  but  which 
do  you  think  is  your  duty  towards  him, — 
you,  yourself,  being  only  another  child,  a 
few  years  older  than  he,  —  to  punish  or  to 
forgive  ? " 

"  Why,  —  to  forgive,  —  I  suppose,"  said 
Rollo,  rather  doubtfully. 

"  I  am  rather  inclined  to  that  opinion, 
myself,"  said  his  mother :  "but  you  can  do 
just  as  you  please." 

Rollo  remained   some  minutes  about  his 


SPLITTING.  73 

mother's  chair,  not  knowing  exactly  what  to 
do  or  say  next.  He  sat  down  upon  the  floor, 
and  began  to  play  with  some  shreds  of  cloth 
which  were  lying  there.  Presently,  he  look- 
ed up  and  said, 

"  Mother,  what  was  the  reason  why  you 
would  not  let  me  tell  you  what  was  the 
matter  with  Nathan  in  the  kitchen  ?  " 

"  Because,"  said  ^he,  "'he  was  crying 
then,  and  it  is  no  time  to  learn  how  an 
injury  happened,  during  the  excitement  of 
the  moment.  If  you  find  Nathan  crying  out 
in  the  yard,  for  instance,  and  try  to  get 
him  to  tell  you  how  he  got  hurt,  you 
only  make  him  cry  the  more.  Get  him 
quiet  first,  and  then  learn  the  story  after- 
wards. 

"Then,  besides  the  difficulty  of  his 
speaking  intelligibly,"  she  continued,  "  at 
such  a  time,  boys  are  very  strongly  tempted 
to  misrepresent  the  facts,  during  the  excite- 
ment of  the  first  moments.  They  are  very 
likely  to  be  a  little  vexed  or  angry,  and,  under 
the  influence  of  those  feelings,  not  to  give  a 
correct  and  honest  account.  So  that  it  is 
always  best  to  put  off  inquiries  till  the  trouble 
is  all  over." 

d  7 


74 


SPLITTING. 


Here  Nathan  came  into  the  room.  His 
forehead  had  ceased  to  give  him  pain,  and 
so  he  had  clambered  down  from  the  bed 
where  his  mother  had  placed  him,  and  now 
came  into  the  room,  looking  quiet  and  calm, 
though  still  not  very  happy. 

Rollo  went  to  him,  and  said,  "  Come,  Na- 
than, now  we  will  go  down  stairs  to  play 
again."  And  he  began  to  lead  him  down 
stairs.     As  they  walked  along,  Rollo  said, 

"  I  am  going  to  make  you  a  beetle  and 
wedge  for  your  own,  Nathan,  and  then  you 
and  I  can  split  together  :  only,  it  is  not  a 
reicard,  you  must  understand.  It  was  wrong 
for  you  to  keep  my  beetle,  and  run  away 
with  my  knife,  and  you  are  sorry  you  did  so, 
an't  you,  Nathan  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Nathan. 

"  And  you  won't  do  so  any  more,  will 
you,  Nathan  ? " 

"No,"  said  Nathan,  "  I  won't  do  so  any 
more." 

Whether  Nathan  was  really  sorry  for  what 
he  had  done,  or  whether  he  only  said  so  be- 
cause Rollo  was  going  to  make  him  a  beetle, 
is  very  doubtful  j  though  it  is  not  impossible 
that  he  was  a  little  sorry. 


SPLITTING.  7S 

Rollo  went  down  into  the  shed  again  with 
Nathan ;  and  while  he  was  at  work  making 
the  new  beetle  and  wedge,  he  let  Nathan 
use  his.  The  first  piece  of  board  had  been 
split  up  ;  so  he  laid  another  one  before  Na- 
than, and  gave  him  his  beetle  and  wedges 
and  knife,  and  then  went  away  out  to  the 
barn  to  get  some  more  wood  for  wedges,  and 
an  auger. 

When  he  came  back,  he  found  Nathan 
standing  at  the  shed  door,  with  the  little 
beetle  in  his  hand,  waiting  for  him.  As 
Nathan  saw  Rollo  coming,  he  called  to  him, 
saying, 

"  Come,  Rollo,  come  and  help  me ;  the 
board  won't  split." 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  it  ? "  said 
Rollo. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Nathan,  "  only  it 
won't  split." 

So  Rollo  went  in  to  see.  He  found  that 
Nathan  had  gone  to  work  wrong.  Instead 
of  trying  to  drive  the  wedge  into  the  end  of 
the  board,  so  as  to  split  it  along  the  grain, 
he  had  made  the  cleft  with  the  knife  in  the 
side  of  the  board,  and  was  attempting  to 


76 


SPLITTING. 


drive  it  in  there,  as  if  he  supposed  he  could 
split  the  board  across  the  grain. 

"  Why,  Nathan,"  said  Rollo,  "  that  isn't 
right.     You  can't  split  it  across." 

Then  he  put  the  wedge  into  the  end, 
where  it  ought  to  be  put,  and  set  Nathan  to 
driving  it.  Now  it  began  to  split  at  once ; 
though  Nathan  could  not  see  why  the  board 
should  not  split  one  way  as  well  as  the 
other. 

Rollo  himself  did  not  understand  it  very 
well.  Nathan  asked  him  why  it  would  not 
split  the  other  way,  and  he  said  that  that 
was  across  the  grain.  But  when  Nathan 
asked  him  what  he  meant  by  grain,  he  could 
not  tell. 

He  took  up  the  wood  and  examined  it, 
and  observed  little  lines  and  ridges,  running 
along  in  the  direction  in  which  it  would 
split ;  but  at  the  ends  of  the  board,  where  it 
had  been  sawed  across  the  grain,  it  was 
rough.  He  determined  to  ask  Jonas  about 
it,  or  his  father. 

He  then  went  to  work,  and  made  the 
wedges  and  a  little  beetle  for  Nathan.  He 
made  Nathan's  beetle  smaller  than  his  own, 


f 
SPLITTING.  77 

because  Nathan  was  not  strong  enough  to 
strike  hard  with  such  a  heavy  beetle.  He 
did  not  get  it  done  in  season  to  use  that  day  ; 
but,  the  next  day,  he  and  Nathan  sat  down 
upon  the  shed  floor,  and  spent  an  hour  in 
splitting  up  the  boards.  They  split  them 
all  up  into  good,  fine  kindling  wood.  Then 
they  piled  the  pieces  up  in  a  neat  pile,  and 
then  brought  Dorothy  out  to  see  them. 

Dorothy  seemed  very  much  pleased,  and 
promised  the  boys  that,  the  next  time  she 
baked  pies,  she  would  kindle  the  fire  in  the 
oven  with  their  kindling  wood,  and  then  she 
would  bake  them  each  a  little  apple  turn- 
over. 

That  evening,  just  before  Rollo  went  to 
bed,  he  asked  Jonas  if  he  could  tell  him 
why  boards  would  only  split  along  the 
grain. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jonas,  "  I  think  I  can  tell 
you.    But  do  you  know  what  the  grain  is  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  don't  know  any 
thing  about  it." 

"  You  know  that  boards  are  made  from 
the  stems  of  tall  trees."  i 

7* 


73 


SPLITTING. 


"  Yes,"  said  Rollo. 

"  We'll,  now  when  trees  are  growing, 
there  are  little  channels  running  up  and 
down  from  the  roots  to  the  branches. " 

"  What  are  they  for  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  They  are  for  the  sap.  The  sap  flows 
up  and  down  in  them.  But  then  there  are 
no  channels  across  from  one  side  of  the  tree 
to  the  other,  because  there  is  no  sap  to  go 
across.  The  sap  all  has  to  go  up  from  the 
roots  to  the  branches  ;  and  so  the  channels 
must  all  be  up  and  down  the  tree. 

"  Now,"  continued  Jonas,  "  when  they 
cut  down  the  tree,  the  trunk  will  split 
easily,  up  and  down,  the  way  the  channels 
and  fibres  all  go  ;  but  it  won't  split  easily 
across.  And  just  so,  when  they  saw  it  up 
into  boards,  the  boards  will  all  split  length- 
wise, from  end  to  end,  for  this  is  the  way 
the  channels  and  fibres  all  lie  ;  but  it  won't 
split  across,  for  that  would  be  across  all  the 
fibres,  and  the  wood  is  made  very  strong  in 
that  direction,  and  it  is  well  it  is  so." 

"Why?"  said  Rollo. 

"Because,  if  trees  would  split  across,  as 
easily  as  they  do  up  and  down,  the  first  good 


SPLITTING.  79 

wind  would  blow  down  all  the  forests  in  the 
world." 

'"  05  Jonas!"  exclaimed  Rollo,  "all  the 
forests  in  the  world  '  " 

"  Yes,"  replied  Jonas,  "  if  the  wind  blew 
all  over  the  world." 


■ 


HOROLOGY 


82 


HOROLOGY. 

i 
One  day  at  eleven  o'clock,  Rollo,  after 
having  put  away  his  books  carefully  into 
his  desk,  went  out  to  play.  It  was  a  calm 
and  pleasant  autumnal  day.  Brown  and 
yellow  leaves  were  falling  from  the  trees,  and 
lying  about  the  yard.  Rollo  found  Nathan 
sitting  upon  the  steps  of  the  door  which 
looked  toward  the  garden  yard.  He  felt 
satisfied  and  happy,  for  he  had  studied  his 
lessons  diligently,  and,  when  he  saw  Na- 
than, he  concluded  to  have  a  little  play 
with  him. 

"Now,  Nathan,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  will  lie 
down  upon  the  steps,  and  make  believe  I  am 
a  bear  gone  to  sleep,  and  you  come  and 
poke  me  with  your  stick,  and  then  I  will 
growl  at  you." 

"  Well,"  said  Nathan,  "  I  will." 
So  Rollo  laid  down  upon  the  steps,  putting 
his  arms  upon  the  threshold  of  the  door  for  a 
pillow,  and  his  head  upon  his  arms,  and  pre- 


I  HOROLOGY.  83 

tended  to  be  asleep ;  but  he  did  not  look 
much  as  if  he  was  asleep,  after  all,  for  he 
could  not  look  quite  sober.  He  tried  to 
look  sober ;  but  there  was  a  lurking  smile 
upon  his  face,  which  made  his  countenance 
look  quite  different  from  that  of  a  bear.  Na- 
than came  creeping  along  softly,  and  when 
he  got  near  enough,  he  began  to  poke  him 
with  the  end  of  his  little  whip-handle  ;  then 
Rollo  would  start  up  and  begin  to  growl, 
when  Wathan  would  scamper  away,  shouting 
with  laughter,  Rollo  after  him,  upon  all- 
fours. 

This  play  lasted  several  minutes,  until  at 
length  Nathan  spoiled  it  by  punching  Rollo 
too  hard  with  his  whip-handle.  A  great 
many  plays  are  spoiled  by  roughness  on  the 
part  of  some  who  are  engaged.  Rollo,  being 
hurt  a  little,  got  out  of  patience.  He  ought 
to  have  asked  Nathan,  pleasantly,"'  not  to 
punch  him  so  hard.  Instead  of  that,  how- 
ever, he  declared  that  he  would  not  play  any 
more,  and  got  up  and  went  away.  Nathan 
followed  him,  lashing  the  ground  and  the 
leaves  with  his  whip. 

They  both  went  into  a  corner  of  the 
yard,  where  Rollo  used  to   have  his  sand- 


84  HOROLOGY.  % 

garden.  This  sand-garden  was  made  of 
clean  sand,  which  Rollo  and  his  cousin 
James  once  wheeled  up  from  the  brook  ; 
and  then,  after-  they  had  smoothed  it  Out, 
and  raked  it  over,  they  used  to  get  plants 
and  flowers,  without  any  roots,  and  stick 
down,  and  then  call  it  their  garden.  They 
used  to  water  the  plants,  and  so  they  could 
keep  them  green  and  bright  for  several  days, 
which  was  long  enough  for  them ;  for, 
after  that,  they  generally  preferred  putting 
down  fresh  ones.  But,  now,  the  sand-garden 
had  been  for  a  long  time  neglected.  The 
remains  of  some  of  the  old  plants  were  there, 
withered  and  dried,  and  the  leaves  of  autumn 
were  scattered  over  its  surface. 

Rollo  began  to  rake  off  the  leaves  with  his 
fingers)  and  then  sat  down,  and  went  to 
digging  a  hole  in  the  sand.  It  was  very  dry 
upon  the  top,  but  on  digging  down  a  little 
way,  he  found  it  damp,  and  so  it  would  hold 
together  pretty  well,  and  he  could  pat  it  into 
any  shape.  A  load  of  clean  sand  makes  a 
very  good  place  for  children  to  play  in,  in  a 
comer  of  a  yard. 

Rollo  sat  down  on  one  side  of  the  sand- 
garden,  and  Nathan  on  the  other,  and  both 


HOROLOGY.  85 

busied  themselves  in  digging  and  building 
little  houses.  They  both  became  very 
much  interested,  and  sat  some  time  very 
still,  until,  at  length,  Rollo  looked  around  to 
see  what  Nathan  might  be  doing. 

"  What  are  you  doing,Thanny  ? "  said  he. 

"  O,  I'm  making  the  sand  run  down 
through." 

Rollo  observed  that  Nathan  had  an  old  tin 
dipper,  which  he  was  holding  up  in  one 
hand,  and  putting  some  dry  sand  into  it 
with  the  other.  There  was  a  very  small 
hole  in  the  bottom  of  the  dipper,  for  it  was  an 
old  one  which  had  been  worn  out  and  thrown 
away ;  and  the  sand  ran  out  of  this  little) 
hole  in  a  fine  stream,  and  it  was  this  whict 
interested  Nathan  so  much. 

"O,  Nathan,"  said  Rollo,  "let  me  have 
the  dipper." 

"No,"  said  Nathan,  "  I  want  it  myself." 

Rollo  would  not  take  it  away  from  Nathan, 
though  he  wanted  it  very  much  indeed. 

"  Yes,  Nathan,"  said  he,  "  let  me  have 
the  dipper,  and  I  will  make  you  an  hour- 
glass out  of  it." 

But  Nathan   said,   "  No,  no,"  and  moved 
away  a  little  farther. 
8 


OO  HOROLOGY. 

Rollo  then  remembered  that  such  a  little 
boy  was  generally  not  interested  in  any  one 
thing  very  long,  and  that,  if  he  should  let 
Nathan  alone,  he  would  soon  put  the  dipper 
down,  and  then  he  could  have  it  without 
any  difficulty.  So  he  went  on  making 
houses  in  the  sand,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
Nathan  put  the  dipper  down.  Then,  soon 
after,  Rollo  took  it  up  and  put  some  dry  sand 
into  it,  and  he  found  that  the  sand  would 
run  very  smoothly,  in  a  fine  stream,  through 
a  small  hole  there  was  in  the  bottom  of  it. 

He  determined  to  make  an  hour-glass  of 
it.  He  had  seen  an  hour-glass  at  his  uncle 
George's.  It  was  made  of  glass,  big  at  the 
bottom  and  at  the  top,  and  narrow  in  the 
middle  between  the  two.  Through  the  nar- 
row part  in  the  middle,  there  was  a  very 
small  hole,  to  let  the  sand  run  down  through  ; 
and  there  was  just  sand  enough  put  in  to  run 
through  in  an  hour.  So  that,  if  a  person 
should  set  the  sand  to  running,  he  would 
know  when  an  hour  had  expired,  by  observ- 
ing when  the  sand  had  all  run  through. 

Rollo  thought  that  he  could  make  an  hour- 
glass ;  and  he  thought  it  would  be  a  great 
convenience  to.  him  to  have  an  hour-glass  in 


HOROLOGY.  87 

the  yard  ;  because  it  often  happened,  when 
he  came  out  to  play,  that  his  mother  would 
tell  him  that  he  might  stay  out  an  hour; 
and  then  he  had  to  go  in  very  often  to  look 
at  the  clock,  in  order  to  know  exactly  when 
the  hour  had  expired. 

There  were,  however,  so  many  little  sticks 
and  old  leaves  in  the  sand,  that  it  kept 
getting  continually  clogged  up,  and  at  last 
Rollo  began  to  get  discouraged.  He  tried  to 
pick  out  the  little  sticks;  but  he  found  he 
could  not  do  that,  and  at  last  it  occurred  to 
him  that  probably  Dorothy  had  some  sand  in 
the  house  that  was  cleaner. 

He  accordingly  went  in  and  asked  her. 
She  told  him  that  he  must  wash  his  own 
sand,  and  that  would  make  it  clean. 

"  But  haven't  you  got  some  that  is  clean 
already  ?  "  said  he. 

"  Yes,"  said  Dorothy  ;  "but  you  will  like 
your  hour-glass  better  if  you  make  it  all 
yourself." 

So  Dorothy  told  him  how  to  wash  sand, 
for  Rollo  said  that  he  did  not  know.  She 
said  he  must  put  a  little  in  a  basin,  and 
then  pump  water  into  it.  "  When  the  basin 
is  nearly  full  of  water,  you  must  stir  it  round, 


88  HOROLOGT. 

and  then  pour  off  the  water,  and  pump  in 
more  ;  —  do  this  until  the  water  comes  off 
clear." 

So  Rollo  took  the  basin  which  Dorothy 
gave  him,  and  went  out  to  his  sand-garden, 
and  put  in  a  little  sand.  Then  he  went  to 
the  pump,  and  pumped  water  into  it.  Then 
he  stirrred  it  about  with  his  hand.  The 
water  immediately  became  very  turbid,  and 
a  great  many  little  sticks  and  leaves  came 
floating  up  to  the  surface.  Rollo  was  sur- 
prised to  find  how  rapidly  the  water  separated 
the  light  things  which  would  float  upon  the 
top,  from  the  heavy  sand  which  would  sink 
to  the  bottom.  He  kept  pouring  off  the 
water,  and  pumping  in  more,  until  at  length 
no  more  sticks  and  leaves  came  off,  and  the 
water  appeared  pretty  clear.  Then  he  car- 
ried the  sand  away,  and  spread  it  out  upon 
a  clean  board  in  the  sun  to  dry. 

While  he  was  thus  at  work  preparing  the 
sand  for  his  hour-glass,  Jonas  happened  to 
come  by,  and  asked  Rollo  what  he  was 
doing.  Rollo  told  him  that  he  was  making 
an  hour-glass.  Jonas  looked  on  for  a  few 
minutes,  and  then  he  told  Rollo  that  he 
thought  that  was  a  pretty  good  plan.    "  And 


HOROLOGY.  89 

/  am  going   to   have    a  time-keeper,  too," 
said  he. 

"  Are  you  ?  "  said  Rollo.     "  What  ? " 

"lam  going  to  make  a  dial,"  said  he. 

"  A    dial !  "    said  Rollo  ;    u  what,    a  real 
dial  ?  " 

Rollo  had  an  idea  that  a  dial  was  ex- 
ceedingly complicated  and  difficult  to  make, 
or  to  understand  ;  and,  in  fact,  it  is  difficult 
to  make  one  that  shall  be  exact  in  its  indi- 
!  cations.  He  did  not  think  it  possible  that 
Jonas  could  make  one. 
-  "  Yes,"  said  Jonas,  "  a  real  dial  ■  and  I 
have  got  a  noon  mark  already." 

"  A  noon  mark  !  "  said  Rollo ;  "  what  is  a 
noon  mark  ? " 

"  It  is  a  mark  to  show  when  it  is  exactly 
twelve  o'clock." 

"  Let   me   go   and   see-  it,"   said    Rollo, 
"while  my  sand  is  drying." 

Rollo  followed  Jonas  off  into  the  barn, 
and  when  there,  Jonas  pointed  to  a  small 
line  which  he  had  cut  with  his  penknife 
upon  the  barn  floor.  It  began  at  the  foot  of 
one  of  the  posts,  by  the  side  of  the  door,  and 
extended  back  into  the  barn  exactly  straight. 
"Is  that  the  noon  mark?"  said  Rollo. 
d*  8* 


90  HOROLOGY. 

He  was  surprised  to  see  that  a  noon  mark 
was  nothing  but  a  cut  with  a  penknife  upon 
a  barn  floor. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jonas  ;  "  that  is  a  meridian." 

"  A  meridian  !  "  said  Rollo,  looking  upon 
it  with  an  air  of  great  curiosity  and  respect. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jonas  j  "  a  line  drawn  exact- 
ly north  and  south,  is  called  a  meridian 
line  ;  and  that  is  exactly  north  and  south." 

"  What  do  you  call  it  a  noon  mark  for  ? " 
said  Rollo. 

"  Because,"  said  Jonas,  "  the  shadow  of 
the  edge  of  the  door  post  will  always  be  ex- 
actly upon  it  at  noon.  So  that  I  can  always 
tell  now  when  it  is  noon,  by  the  shadow  of  the 
post  upon  my  noon  mark,  if  the  sun  shines." 

All  this  was  very  new  and  very  curious 
to  Rollo.  He  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  a 
noon  mark  before ;  and  it  seemed  to  him  a 
very  simple  and  beautiful  way  of  knowing 
when  it  was  noon.  He  asked  Jonas  how  he 
found  out  about  it,  and  Jonas  told  him  that 
he  had  been  reading  about  it  in  a  book 
on  astronomy. 

"Your  father  let  me  have  the  book,"  said 
he  ;  "  and  see  my  chalk  marks  for  the  sun's 
shadow.' 


HOROLOGY.  91 

Rollo  looked,  and  found  that  Jonas  had 
put  down  quite  a  number  of  chalk  marks 
along  in  a  line,  where  they  had  first  began 
to  mark  the  place  where  the  shadow  of  the 
door  reached  into.  Rollo  and  Lucy  had  for- 
gotten all  about  their  plan  of  making  such  a 
series  of  observations  ;  but  Jonas  had  gone 
on  regularly,  making  a  mark  every  Monday, 
at  noon,  precisely.  As  the  sun,  at  that  sea- 
son of  the  year,  was  going  round  farther  and 
farther  to  the  south  every  week,  it  shone 
in  farther  and  farther  upon  the  floor,  so  that 
each  chalk  mark  was  farther  in  than  the  one 
made  the  week  before. 

In  order  to  make  his  marks  at  the  right 
time,  Jonas  wanted  to  know,  every  Monday, 
when  it  was  precisely  twelve  o'clock,  and 
this  led  him  to  make  his  noon  mark,  having 
seen  the  account  of  it  in  the  book  which 
Rollo 's  father  had  lent  him.  He  learned 
there  that  the  shadows  of  all  upright  objects 
are  cast  exactly  north  at  twelve  o'clock,  or 
rather  very  nearly  north  ;  near  enough  for 
his  purposes.  Now,  as  the  post  of  the  barn 
door  was  upright,  he  knew  that  the  shadow 
of  it  would  be  in  the  north  and  south  line 
at  noon.     Of  course,  if  he  had  a  north  and 


92  HOROLOGY. 

south  line j  or  a  meridian  line,  as  it  was 
called  in  the  book,  drawn  upon  the  floor,  he 
knew  that  he  could  tell  when  it  was  noon, 
by  the  shadow  ot  the  post  coming  then  ex- 
actly upon  that  line.  He  explained  this  all 
to  Rollo,  and  Rollo  was  very  much  pleased 
with  it  indeed.  He  determined  to  have  a 
noon  line  somewhere  in  the  house. 

Rollo  asked  Jonas  what  was  the  way  to 
draw  a  noon  line.  Jonas  told  him  that 
there  were  several  ways.  One  way,  he  said, 
was  to  observe  some  day,  by  the  clock, 
when  it  was  exactly  noon,  and  then  to  mark, 
upon  the  barn  floor,  the  line  where  the 
shadow  of  the  edge  of  the  post  fell  precisely 
at  that  moment.  Another  way  was  to  get 
a  compass  needle,  and  put  it  down  upon  the 
floor,  and  then  draw  a  north  and  south  line 
precisely  in  the  direction  that  the  needle 
indicated.  That  would,  of  course,  be  a  north 
and  south  line,  because  the  compass  needle 
always  pointed  north  and  south.  He  said 
that  he  adopted  both  these  methods  to  make 
his  noon  line.  First,  he  got  a  compass 
needle,  which  Rollo 's  father  had  lent  him, 
and  put  that  down  upon  the  barn. floor  just 
at  the  foot  of  the  door  post,  and  observed 


HOROLOGY.  93 

the  direction  ;  and  he  also  noticed  when  it 
was  twelve,  by  the  clock  in  the  house,  and 
he  found  that,  when  it  was  twelve  by  the 
clock,  the  shadow  of  the  post  came  exactly 
to  the  line  indicated  by  the  direction  of 
the  compass  needle  j  and  so  he  knew  that 
that  was  a  correct  meridian  line. 


94 


JONAS'S    DIAL. 


That  evening,  Rollo  told  his  father  about 
his  hour-glass,  and  also  about  Jonas's  noon 
line.  His  father  said  it  was  very  difficult  to 
draw  a  meridian  line. 

"O  no,  father,"  said  Rollo;  "Jonas  has 
drawn  one,  and  he  told  me  how,  and  it  was 
a  very  easy  way." 

"Yes,"  said  his  father,  "it  is  easy  to 
draw  something  which  you  can  call  a  noon 
mark :  but  it  is  a  very  difficult  and  delicate 
operation  to  do  it  with  any  considerable 
degree  of  exactness." 

"  I  think  that  Jonas's  is  exact,"  said 
Rollo. 

"  It  probably  may  be  as  exact  as  he  could 
make  it  with  his  means  and  instruments; 
but  there  are  a  great  many  sources  of  error 
which  he  could  not  possibly  have  avoided." 

"What?"  asked  Rollo. 

"  Why,  in  the  first  place,  the  clock  is  not 
exact.     It  is  near  enough  to  answer  all  the 


JONAs's    DIAL.  95 

purposes  of  a  family ;  but  it  may  often  be 
a  minute  or  more  out  of  the  way.  Then 
besides,  while  Jonas  is  going  from  the  clock 
out  to  the  barn,  the  shadow  is  slowly 
moving  on,  all  the  time ;  so  that  he  cannot 
tell  exactly  where  the  shadow  was,  when  it 
was  precisely  twelve  by  the  clock. 

"  Then  again,  it  is  not  always  exactly  noon 
when  the  shadow  comes  to  the  north  and  south 
line.  It  varies  a  little  at  different  seasons  of 
the  year,  though  it  is  so  near  that  we  say, 
in  general  terms,  that  at  noon  all  shadows 
of  upright  objects  point  to  the  north.  Still, 
it  is  not  precisely  true,  except  on  a  very  few 
days  in  the  year.  Then,  again,  the  post  of 
the  barn  door  is  not  exactly  upright." 

"  I  thought  they  always  made  door  posts 
exactly  upright,"  said  Rollo. 

"  They  do  make  them  as  nearly  upright 
as  they  can,  with  the  common  carpenters' 
instruments ;  but  they  are  not  exact.  To 
set  a  post  of  any  kind,  with  great  precision, 
perpendicular  to  the  horizon,  would  require 
very  expensive  mathematical  instruments, 
and  very  laborious  and  nice  observations. 
Then,  again,  if  the  clock  had  been  exact, 
and  the  post  perfectly  upright,  Jonas  could 


96 


not  have  marked  the  place  of  the  shadow 
exactly.  The  shadow  has  not  an  exact  and 
well-defined  edge ;  and  then,  even  while  he 
was  marking  at  one  end,  the  shadow  would 
be  moving  along  at  the  other  end,  and 
so  his  noon  mark  would  not  be  exactly- 
straight.  " 

"  Why,  father,  he  could  make  the  mark 
right  along  quick." 

"  No  matter  how  quick  he  might  make  it. 
It  would  take  some  time,  wouldn't  it  ?  " 

"  Only  a  very  little"  said  Rollo. 

"  And  do  you  suppose  the  sun  would 
stand  still,  even  during  that  little  time,  so 
as  to  let  the  shadow  remain  stationary  ? 

"  However,"  continued  his  father,  "  I 
don't  say  this  to  disparage  Jonas's  noon 
mark.  I  dare  say,  it  is  accurate  enough  for 
his  purposes.  He  only  wants  to  know  from 
it  when  it  is  time  for  him  to  come  in  to 
dinner,  or  something  like  that.  I  only  want 
you  to  understand  what  exactness  is,  and  to 
see,  a  little,  how  difficult  it  is  to  attain  to 
any  considerable  degree  of  it,  in  such  cases. 
So  thus,  it  seems,  that  Jonas  has  got  a  sort 
of  a  dial?" 

"  Why,  it  only  tells  him  what  o'clock  it 


97 


is  at  one  hour  in  the  day,"  said  Rollo 
"  But  I  think  he  might  make  it  do  for  all 
the  afternoon  and  forenoon." 

"  How  ?  "  inquired  his  father. 

"  Why,  all  he  has  got  to  do  is  to  watch 
some  day  when  it  is  nine  o'clock,  and  ten 
o'clock,  and  so  on,  every  hour  ;  and  then 
make  a  line  where  the  shadow  comes  every 
hour,  just  as  he  did  for  twelve  o'clock. 
Then  he  will  have  marks  for  every  hour  in 
the  day,  and  when  the  shadow  comes  along 
to  these  marks,  one  after  another,  he  will 
know  what  time  it  is." 

"  O,  but  the  difficulty  is,"  said  his  father, 
"  that  the  shadow  will  not  come  to  the  same 
places,  at  the  same  hours,  on  different  days. 
It  will  come  to  the  meridian  line,  at  twelve, 
always,  —  that  is,  nearly  to  it ;  but  it  will 
not  come  to  any  other  lines  regularly,  — that 
is,  if  the  object,  which  casts  the  shadow, 
is  upright." 

"  Will  any  other  kind  of  object  carry  the 
shadow  regularly  ?  "  asked  Rollo. 

"Yes,"  said  his  father,  "an  object  that 
leans  over  to  the-  north,  so  as  to  point  to  the 
North  Star.  If  you  and  Jonas  could  put  a 
post  into  the  ground  so  as  to  have  it  point 

e  9 


98 


to  the  North  Star,  then  you  could  mark, 
all  around  it,  the  places  to  which  the  shad- 
ow would  come  for  every  hour  in  the  day, 
and  afterwards  it  would  come  to  the  same 
places  regularly,  or  nearly  so.  It  would 
be  near  enough  for  your  purposes ;  and  I 
don't  know  but  that  it  would  be  quite  a  re- 
spectable dial  for  you." 

Rollo  then  asked  his  father  why  it  was 
that  a  post,  which  pointed  to  the  North  Star, 
would  bring  a  shadow  any  more  regularly  to 
the  hour  marks,  than  an  upright  one  would  ; 
but  he  said  that  Rollo  did  not  know  enough, 
yet,  to  understand  the  explanation,  even  if 
he  were  to  try  to  explain  it.  "  Therefore," 
said  he,  "you  must  wait  until  you  study 
astronomy  before  you  can  expect  to  under- 
stand it ;  but  you  can  now,  in  the  mean 
time,  make  such  a  dial,  if  you  wish  to  do 
it." 

Rollo  did  wish  to  do  it  very  much.  He 
accordingly  told  Jonas  all  that  his  father 
had  said.  It  seemed  very  strange  to  Jonas, 
that  a  post,  pointing  to  the  North  Star,  should 
have  its  shadows  move  round  any  more 
regularly  than  a  post  in  any  other  position. 
He  could  not  imagine  what  the  North  Star 


99 


could  have  to  do  with  the  shadows.  Still, 
he  determined  to  try  the  experiment. 

A  few  days  after  this,  Jonas  did  try  the 
experiment.  He  got  two  narrow  boards, 
which  were  once  pickets  belonging  to  a 
picket  fence,  one  end  of  each  was  sharp,  so 
that  it  could  be  driven  down  into  the  ground. 
Then  he  selected  a  certain  part  of  the  yard, 
in  a  corner,  where  the  dial  would  be  out  of 
the  way,  and  yet  the  path  to  the  barn  led 
along  pretty  near  it.  The  reason  why  Jonas 
got  two  boards  was  this :  he  knew  that,  if 
he  drove  only  one  stake  into  the  ground,  and 
inclined  it  towards  the  North  Star,  it  would 
be  very  likely  to  get  started  out  of  its  proper 
position  ;  but  if  he  had  two,  he  could  drive 
the  second  one  down  perpendicularly  from  the 
end  of  the  first,  and  then  nail  the  two  ends 
together  ;  and  that  would  keep  all  steady. 

After  having  got  every  thing  ready,  the 
boys  waited  till  the  evening  before  fixing  up 
the  dial,  because  they  could  not  see  the  North 
Star  in  the  day  time.  But  when  the  evening 
came,  they  went  out,  and  began  their  prepa- 
rations. It  was  a  clear  and  pretty  cold 
evening,  and  the  stars  were  out  in  thou- 
sands. 


100  JONAS'S    DIAL. 

«  Which  is  the  North  Star  ?  "  asked  Rollo. 

Jonas  looked  about  a  minute  or  two,  say- 
ing, "Let  me  see  —  where's  the  Dipper? 
O,  I  see  a  part  of  it ;  the  rest  is  down  behind 
the  barn.  It  was  up  high  the  last  time  I 
saw  it." 

"  Where  is  the  Dipper  ?  "  said  Rollo,  look- 
ing eagerly  in  the  direction  to  which  Jonas 
was  turned. 

"  Come  this  way,"  said  Jonas,  "  so  as  to 
be  out  of  the  way  of  the  barn,  and  you  can 
see  it  better." 

So  Jonas  pointed  out  the  Dipper  to  Rollo, 
with  its  square  body,  and  long,  bent  handle. 
It  was  at  first  quite  difficult  for  Rollo  to  see 
any  thing  that  looked  at  all  like  a  dipper ;  as 
it  consisted  only  of  stars,  which  it  required 
some  imagination  to  make  look  like  one. 

"  The  handle  reaches  almost  down  to  the 
ground,"  said  Rollo. 

tl  Down  to  the  horizon,  you  mean,"  said 
Jonas. 

"  Is  that  the  horizon  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jonas,  "where  the  earth  and 
sky  meet.  Not  long  ago  the  Dipper  handle 
was  away  up  there,"  he  continued,  pointing 
up  very  high. 


JONAS 'S    DTAL. 


101 


"  Does  the  Dipper  move  •>  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,  it  goes  round  and  round  the  North 
Star,  all  the  time.  All  the  stars  that  are 
near  the  North  Star  keep  going  round  and 
round  it,  once  every  day." 

"And  the  rest  of  the  stars,"  said  Rollo, 
"  do  they  go  round  too  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Jonas  ;  "  only  they  are  so  far 
from  the  North  Star,  that  they  go  in  larger 
circles,  and  so  go  down  below  the  horizon, 
and  are  out  of  sight  sometimes.  They  come 
up  in  the  east,  like  the  sun,  and  go  over 
and  down  in  the  west.  But  they  don't  go 
over  straight,"  he  added.  "  They  don't 
come  right  up  straight,  and  so  go  directly 
over.  They  slant  away,  off  to  the  south, 
so  as  to  keep  always  just  so  .far  from  the 
North  Star." 

"  That's  curious,"  said  Rollo. 

"I  think  it  is,"  said  Jonas.  "And  they 
all  go  together ;  they  don't  move  about 
among  themselves,  at  all." 

"Don't  they  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"No,"  said  Jonas  j  "  only  there  are  a  % 
wandering  stars,  that  keep  wandering  about 
among  the  others.  But  the  rest  all  keep 
9  * 


102  JONAs's    DIAL. 

exactly  in  their  places,  and  all  go  round  to- 
gether ;  so  they  are  called  fixed  stars." 

"  Show  me  one  of  the  wandering  stars," 
said  Roilo. 

"  I  don't  know  which  they  are,"  said 
Jonas,  "  only  they  are  pretty  bright  ones." 

"  I  guess  that's  one,"  said  Rollo,  pointing 
to  a  pretty  bright  star  in  the  east. 

"  Perhaps  it  is,"  said  Jonas. 

"  I  wish  I  knew,"  said  Rollo. 

"  I'll  tell  you  how  you  can  find  out," 
said  Jonas. 

"  How  ?  "  asked  Rollo. 

"  Why,  when  you  go  into  the  house,  take 
a  piece  of  paper,  and  go  to  the  window,  and 
make  some  dots  upon  it,  for  all  the  stars 
around  that  one.  Make  the  dots  just  in  the 
places  that  the  stars  seem  to  be  in.  Then 
let  them  all  go.  They  will  rise  more  and 
more,  and  go  overhead,  and  down  in  the 
west,  and  to-morrow  night  they  will  come 
up  in  the  east  again ;  and  then  you  can  look 
at  them  again,  and  see  if  the  bright  star  has 
changed  its  place  at  all." 

Rollo  said  that  he  meant  to*do  that;  and 
then  he  said  that  he  began  to  feel  cold,  and 


103 


wanted  to  go  in.  But  Jonas  told  him  that 
he  ought  to  wait  and  help  finish  the  dial. 

So  they  went  to  the  place  which  Jonas 
had  selected,  and  Jonas,  looking  up  first  at 
the  North  Star,  made  a  hole  in  the  ground, 
with  an  iron  bar,  in  an  oblique  direction,  so 
that  the  bar  should  point  pretty  nearly  to  the 
North  Star.  Then  he  drove  in  one  of  his 
stakes  in  the  same  way.  He  then  made  a 
hole,  perpendicularly,  directly  under  the  end 
of  this  inclined  stake,  and  drove  the  other 
stake  down  into  that.  The  two  upper  ends 
of  the  stakes  were  now  together. 

Then  Jonas  stooped  down,  so  as  to  bring 
his  eye  near  the  edge  of  the  inclined  stake, 
at  the  lower  end,  so  that  he  could  "  sight " 
along  the  edge  of  it,  towards  the  star.  He 
had  previously  cut  a  notch  in  it,  so  that 
he  could  get  his  eye  down  far  enough  to 
look  directly  along  the  edge.  At  the  same 
ime,  Rollo  took  hold  of  the  upper  end,  and 
stood  ready  to  move  it  either  way,  as  Jonas 
might  direct,  until  it  should  point  exactly 
towards  the  North  Star. 

"  Down,"  said  Jonas. 

Then  Rollo  moved  it  a  little  down. 

"  Down  more." 


104  JONAs's    DIAL. 

Rollo  moved  it  farther. 

"  Up  — up  a  little,"  added  Jonas.  "  There 
—  that  will  do.  Now  hold  the  two  stakes 
firmly  together,  exactly  so." 

Then  Jonas  took  some  nails,  which  he 
had  before  provided,  and  nailed  the  tops  of 
the  stakes  together,  Rollo  holding  the  axe 
up  against  them,  on  the  opposite  side.  This 
supported  the  end  of  the  inclined  stake  firmly, 
so  that  it  could  not  move  up  or  down.  This 
was  all  that  the  boys  wanted  to  do  in  the 
evening,  and  so  they  both  went  in. 

The  next  day,  Jonas  sawed  off  the  ends 
of  both  stakes  where  they  projected  beyond 
the  junction ;  and  then  Rollo  said  he  would 
watch  the  clock  all  day,  and  mark  the  place 
where  the  shadow  came  each  hour,  and  drive 
a  little  stake  down.  "  Then,"  said  he,  "  our 
dial  will  be  done." 

"  But  what  do  you  suppose  is  the  reason," 
said  Rollo,  "  that  we  must  make  it  point  to 
the  North  Star  more  than  to  any  other  ?  " 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Jonas,  " unless  it  is 
because  the  North  Star  is  the  only  one  that 
keeps  always  in  the  same  place.  The  rest 
move  round  and  round  every  day.  Those 
that  are  far  enough  from  the  North  Star  to  go 


JONAS'S    DIAL.  105 

down  below  the  horizon,  rise  and  set ;  and 
those  that  are  not  far  enough,  go  round  and 
round  in  circles,  in  the  open  sky.  But  the 
North  Star  keeps  still." 

"  Does  it  ? "  said  Rollo,  turning  around,  and 
looking  up  to  the  part  of  the  heavens  where 
he  had  seen  the  star  the  evening  before. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jonas  ;  "  and  the  reason  why 
we  cannot  see  it  now,  is  the  bright  daylight. 
It  is  up  there  now,  just  where  it  was  last 
night." 

"  And  the  Dipper,  too  ? "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,  and  the  Dipper,  too  ;  only  that  has 
moved  half  round,  I  suppose,  and  is  now 
away  up  above  the  North  Star." 

"I  wish  I  could  see  it,"  said  Rollo.  And 
he  looked  as  steadily  and  intently  into  the 
clear  blue  sky,  as  he  could  ;  but  he  could 
not  possibly  see  the  least  sign  of  a  star. 

However,  the  sun  shone  bright,  and  it 
cast  a  strong  shadow  from  the  stakes  which 
they  had  driven  into  the  ground.  Jonas 
soon  went  away  to  his  work,  and  left  Rollo 
to  mark  the  hours  by  means  of  the  clock. 

So  Rollo  had  to  go  into  the  house  very 
often  to  see  what  time  it  was:  and  at  last 


106  JONAS 'S    DIAL. 

his  father,  who  was  sitting  there  at  his 
writing,  asked  him  what  made  him  want  to 
see  the  clock  so  much.  Rollo  told  him  the 
reason.  So  his  father  put  down  his  pen, 
and  came  out  to  see  the  dial. 

When  he  saw  the  two  stakes,  with  their 
lower  ends  driven  into  the  ground,  and  the 
upper  ends  nailed  firmly  together,  he  looked 
at  them  with  a  smile,  but  did  not  say  any 
thing. 

"Will  that  do?"  said  Rollo,  looking  up 
very  eagerly  into  his  father's  face. 

His  father  did  not  answer,  but  continued 
to  examine  the  work  on  all  sides,  with  a 
countenance  expressive  of  curiosity  and 
pleasure. 

"It  points  to  the  North  Star,  exactly," 
added  Rollo.     "Jonas  sighted  it." 

"Yes,"  said  his  father;  "I  think  that 
will  do ;  you  have  got  quite  a  respectable 
gnomon." 

"  Gnomon  ? "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father  ;  "we  call  such  a 
thing  a  gnomon.  In  common  dials,  they 
are  made  of  brass  ;  but  I  don't  see  why  this 
won't  do  very  well.  It  is  rather  a  large 
gnomon." 


107 

"  Is  it  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father,  "  I  think  it  is  the 
biggest  gnomon  I  ever  saw. 

"  But  how  are  you  going  to  mark  the  hour 
lines,  Rollo  ?  "  asked  his  father/ 

«  Why,  we  are  going  to  drive  little  stakes 
down  into  the  ground." 

"  'Seems  to  me  that  you  can  contrive  some 
better  plan  than  that,"  said  his  father. 

"  Why  ?  "  said  Rollo.  "  Is  not  that  a 
good  plan  ? " 

"  Not  very  good,"  he  replied  ;  "  because 
you  cannot  be  exact  in  driving  down  stakes. 
The  beauty  of  a  dial  is  its  exactness.  I 
should  think  that  you  would  do  better  to  put 
a  board  down  upon  the  ground,  and  mark 
your  lines  upon  that." 

"  O,  the  board  would  get  knocked  about," 
said  Rollo. 

"  I  dare  say  that  Jonas  would  contrive 
some  way  to  keep  it  steady." 

"  But  he  says  he  can't  do  any  thing  more 
about  the  dial  to-day,  for  he  must  attend  to 
his  work." 

"  Let  me  see  — he  is  putting  the  harnesses 
in  order,  I  believe." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Rollo. 


108  JONAS's    DIAL. 

ci  Well,  you  may  tell  him  that  after  he 
has  done  the  harness  that  he  is  at  work 
upon  now,  he  may  finish  his  dial." 

Then  Rollo's  father  went  into  the  house, 
and  away  went  Rollo  in  pursuit  of  Jonas. 

Jonas  liked  the  plan  of  putting  a  board 
down  very  much,  and  in  a  short  time  he 
went  to  work  to  do  it.  He  planed  out  a 
board  of  the  right  length,  and  then  put  it  down 
upon  the  ground,  under  and  between  the 
two  stakes,  but  nearest  to  the  upright  one. 
They  placed  it  across  at  right  angles  to  the 
line  between  the  stakes,  and  of  course,  as  the 
stakes  were  in  a  north  and  south  line,  the 
board  was  in  an  east  and  west  line,  and  so 
the  shadows  were  cast  exactly  across  it. 

The  board  being  planed  smooth,  the  edge 
of  the  shadow  could  be  seen  much  more  dis- 
tinctly upon  it,  than  upon  the  ground  ;  so  Jo- 
nas was  satisfied  that  it  would  be  a  great  deal 
better  to  draw  the  hour  lines  upon  the  board. 
After  having  determined  upon  the  place 
where  it  was  to  go,  he  took  it  up  again, 
and  then  drove  down  two  strong  but  short 
stakes,  sawed  off  square  at  the  top,  into  the 
ground,  one  on  each  side ;  so  that  they 
should   Gome   under   the   two  ends  of  the 


JONAS;S    DIAL.  Ill 

board.  Then  he  laid  the  board  down  again 
upon  the  stakes,  and  nailed  the  ends  of  the 
board  to  them.  The  stakes  had  been  driven 
in  until  they  were  just  level  with  the  surface 
of  the  ground,  and  so  the  board  seemed  to 
be  lying  along  upon  the  ground  too,  though 
it  was,  in  fact,  fastened  securely  to  the  short 
stakes.  Then  the  boys  marked  the  hour 
lines  upon  the  board  with  some  black  paint ; 
and  thus  they  had  a  very  respectable  dial. 
When  the  sun  shone,  Rollo  could  tell  what 
o'clock  it  was  near  enough  for  all  his  pur- 
poses. 


112 


THE  BEE-HIVE. 


One  of  the  drollest  of  all  of  Rollo's  experi- 
ments was  his  plan  for  getting  a  bee-hive. 

One  day,  he  was  in  the  garden  with  a 
playmate  of  his,  named  Henry,  who  lived 
not  very  far  from  his  father's  house. 

In  the  back  part  of  the  garden  were  some 
tall  hollyhocks  growing.  They  were  in  full 
flower.  Hollyhocks  are  very  tall.  They 
grow  up  in  a  straight  stem,  as  high  as  a 
man's  head,  with  leaves  and  flowers  from 
top  to  bottom. 

The  flowers  are  large,  and  shaped  some- 
what like  a  cup,  or  rather  a  wine-glass,  and 
bees  often  go  into  them  to  get  honey. 

Now  it  happened  that  as  Rollo  and  Henry 
were  sauntering  about,  near  these  holly- 
hocks, Rollo  happened  to  see  a  bee  in  one 
of  the  flowers,  loading  himself  up  with  wax 
or  honey.  The  flower,  that  the  bee  was  in, 
was  just  about  as  high  as  Rollo's  head. 


THE    BEE-HIVE.  113 

"O,  there's  a  bee!"  said  Rollo;  "  let's 
catch  him." 

"  Catch  him  !  "  said  Henry.  "If  you  do, 
you'll  catch  a  sting,  I  rather  think." 

"  No,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  can  catch  him  with- 
out getting  stung." 

"  How  ?  "  said  Henry. 

"  I  will  show  you,"  said  Rollo. 

So  saying,  Rollo  approached  the  holly- 
hocks, and  put  both  his  hands  up  slowly  to 
the  flower  which  the  bee  was  in.  He  then 
very  carefully  gathered  together  the  edges 
of  the  flower,  so  as  to  enclose  and  imprison 
the  bee.  He  then  gently  broke  off  the  stem 
of  the  flower,  and  held  it  up  to  Henry's  ear3 
to  let  him  hear  the  bee  buzz  within. 

"  Now,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  wish  I  had  a  little 
bee-hive.  I  would  put  him  in,  and  perhaps 
he  would  make  some  honey  in  there." 

"  Do  you  think  he  would  ?  "  said  Henry. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Rollo,  "  I  have  no  doubt 
he  would  ;  bees  always  make  honey  in  bee- 
hives." 

"Haven't  you  got  some  box  that  will 
do  ?  "  said  Henry. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Rollo;  "let  us  go 
along  towards  the  barn,  and  see  if  we  can't 

e*  10* 


114 


THE    BEE-HIVE. 


find  one.  I  suppose  it  is  no  matter  what  the 
shape  of  it  is,"  he  added,  "if  it  is  only  a 
box,  with  a  small  hole  for  the  bees  to  go  in 
and  out." 

"  But  you  haven't  got  but  one  bee,"  said 
Henry,  as  they  walked  along  towards  the 
barn. 

Rollo  held  the  flower,  with  the  bee  im- 
prisoned in  it,  safely  in  his  fingers. 

' "  O,  I  can  catch  plenty  more.  I  could 
catch  a  whole  hive  of  them,  in  time." 

"  But  I  don't  believe  they  will  stay  and 
work  in  your  hive,"  said  Henry.  "  They 
will  all  fly  off  and  go  home  to  where  they 
belong." 

"No,"  said  Rollo,  "I  will  plug  up  the 
hole,  and  keep  them  shut  in  until  they  get 
used  to  it.  When  they  get  wonted  to  the 
new  hive,  they  will  stay  there,  after  that, 
I  know.  That's  the  way  they  do  with 
doves." 

"  But  you  won't  have  any  queen  bee," 
said  Henry.  u  Bees  won't  work  without  a 
queen  bee.     I  read  it  in  a  book." 

"  Well,  perhaps  I  can  catch  a  queen  bee, 
some  day,"  said  Rollo,  rather  doubtfully. 
Rollo  was  so  much  interested  in  his  plan, 


THE    BEE-HIVE.  115 

that  he  was  determined  not  to  see  any  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  it ;  and  yet  he  could 
not  help  feeling  that  there  was  some  uncer- 
tainty about  his  succeeding  in  entrapping  a 
queen  bee. 

However,  just  at  this  point  in  the  conversa- 
tion, he  suddenly  stopped,  and  pointed  down 
to  a  flower-pot,  which  stood  bottom  upwards, 
upon  a  seat,  near  where  they  were  walking. 

"  There,"  said  he,  "  that  will  do  for  a 
bee-hive." 

"Ho!"  said  Henry,   "  that  is  not  a  box." 

"  No  matter,"  said  Rollo  ;  "it  is  just  as 
good,  and  there  is  a  little  hole  for  the  bees 
to  go  out  and  in  at." 

There  is  always  a  little  hole  in  the  bottom 
of  a  flower-pot. 

"  So  there  is,"  said  Henry  ;  "  but  do  you 
think  that  the  bees  will  make  honey  in  an 
earthen  pot  ? " 

"  O,  yes,"  said  Rollo,  "just  as  well  as  in 
any  thing.  The  bees  don't  care  what  they 
make  the  honey  in.  Sometimes  they  make 
it  in  old  logs." 

"  Well,"  said  Henry,  "  and  we'll  call  it  a 
honey-pot.     And  where  shall  we  put  it  ?  " 

"We  can  keep  it  on  this  seat:  it  is  as 


I 

116  THE    BEE-HIVE. 

good  a  place  as  any  ;  the  bees  will  be  right 
in  the  garden  as  soon  as  they  come  out  of 
their  hive." 

So  saying,  Rollo  asked  Henry  to  hold  his 
bee  a  minute,  while  he  got  the  honey-pot 
ready.  Henry  took  the  flower  very  careful- 
ly, so  as  not  to  let  the  bee  escape,  and  then 
Rollo  lifted  up  the  flower-pot,  and  looked 
inside.  It  was  pretty  clean ;  but  as  Rollo 
knew  that  bees  were  very  nice  in  their  hab- 
its, he  thought  he  would  just  take  it  to  the 
pump,  and  wash  it  out  a  little. 

In  a  few  minutes,  he  brought  it  back,  and 
replaced  it,  bottom  upwards,  upon  the  seat, 
and  then  prepared  to  put  the  bee  in.  He 
took  the  flower  again  from  Henry's  hand,  and 
then  very  carefully  inserted  the  edges  of  it, 
which  had  been  gathered  together  with  his 
fingers,  into  the  hole.  He  then  began  to 
knock  and  push  the  bottom  of  the  flower,  to 
make  the  bee  go  in.  The  bee,  not  knowing 
what  to  make  of  this  treatment,  kept  up  a 
great  buzzing,  but  soon  went  in. 

"  There,"  said  Rollo.  "  Now,  Henry,  you 
be  ready  to  clap  your  thumb  over  the  hole, 
as  soon  as  I  take  the  flower  away,  or  else 
he'll  come  out." 


THE    BEE-HIVE.  11T 

"  O,  no,"  said  Henry :  "  he'll  fly  up  and 
sting  me." 

"  No,  he  won't,"  said  Rollo.  "  I  only 
want  you  to  keep  him  in  a  minute,  while  I 
go  and  get  a  plug." 

Henry  then,  with  much  hesitation  and 
fear,  put  his  thumb  over  the  hole,  as  Rollo 
withdrew  the  flower.  He  stood  there  while 
Rollo  went  for  a  plug  ;  but  he  seemed  to  feel 
very  uneasy,  and  continually  called  Rollo  to 
be  quick. 

Rollo  could  not  find  a  plug,  but  he  picked 
up  a  small,  flat  stone,  and  concluded  that 
that  would  do  just  as  well.  So  he  released 
Henry  from  his  dangerous  position,  and  put 
the  stone  over  the  hole. 

"  There,"  said  Rollo,  with  a  tone  of  great 
satisfaction,  when  he  had  done  this,  "  now 
he  is  safe.  We'll  let  him  stay,  while  we  go 
and  catch  another  bee." 

So  they  went  back  to  the  hollyhocks,  and 
there,  quite  fortunately,  they  found  another 
bee  just  going  into  one  of  the  flowers.  Rol- 
lo secured  him  in  the  same  way,  and  carried 
him  along,  and  pushed  him  into  the  flower- 
pot. Henry  stood  ready  to  clap  the  stone 
on,  as  soon  as  he  was  in,  and  then  they 


118  THE    BEE-HIVE. 

came  back  to  the  hollyhocks  again.  They 
had  then  to  wait  a  little  while,  watching  for 
bees ;  at  length,  however,  one  came,  and,  by 
and  by,  another  ;  and  so,  in  the  course  of  an 
hour  or  two,  they  got  seven  bees,  all  safe  in 
the  honey-pot,  and  Rollo  said  he  thought 
seven  were  about  enough  to  go  to  work,  at 
least,  to  begin.  They  had  not  yet  found 
any  one,  however,  that  seemed  to  Rollo  to  be 
a  queen  bee. 

At  last,  it  was  time  for  Henry  to  go  home, 
and  Rollo  concluded  to  leave  his  bee-hive 
until  the  next  morning.  He  thought  he 
would  leave  the  hole  stopped  up,  so  that  the 
bees  might  get  used  to  their  new  accommo- 
dations ;  but  he  intended  to  open  it  the  next 
day,  in  order  to  let  them  begin  their  work. 

The  next  morning,  Henry  came  over  soon 
after  breakfast  to  see  how  affairs  stood  in 
respect  to  the  bee-hive.  He  and  Rollo  went 
out  into  the  garden  to  look  at  the  establish- 
ment, and  found  every  thing  as  they  had 
left  it  the  night  before.  Rollo  felt  quite 
confident  of  the  success  of  his  experiment. 
The  only  thing  that  gave  him  any  uneasi- 
ness was  the  want  of  a  queen  bee.  He  and 
Henry  were  just  speculating  upon  the  expe- 


THE    BEE-HIVE.  119 

diency  of  sending  in  a  bumble-bee  instead, 
for  a  king,  when  their  attention  was  arrested 
by  hearing  Jonas  calling  Rollo.  They  look- 
ed up,  and  saw  him  standing  at  the  garden 
gate. 

"  Rollo,"  said  Jonas,  "do  you  want  to  go 
out  with  me  to  the  pasture,  and  catch  the 
horse  ? " 

"  Why,  —  yes,"  said  Rollo.  But  yet  he 
did  not  go.  He  seemed  to  feel  in  doubt. 
11  Must  you  go  this  minute  ?  "  said  he. 

"  Yes,"  said  Jonas.  "  Come ;  and  Henry 
may  go,  too." 

"  Well,  wait  a  minute,  just  till  I  go  and 
open  the  door  in  my  bee-hive." 

"  Your  bee-hive  !  "  said  Jonas  ;  "  what  do 
you  mean  by  that  ?  " 

But  Rollo  did  not  hear  what  Jonas  said  ; 
for  he  had  run  off  along  the  alley,  Henry 
after  him,  towards  the  place  where  they  had 
established  their  hive. 

"  What  does  he  mean  by  his  bee-hive  ?  " 
said  Jonas  to  himself.  "  I  mean  to  go  and 
see." 

So  Jonas  opened  the  garden  gate,  and  came 
in.  When  he  came  up  near  the  seat  where 
Henry  and  Rollo  stood,  he  found  the  boys 


120  THE    BEE-HIVE. 

standing  a  step  or  two  back  from  the  flower- 
pot, both  watching  the  hole  with  the  utmost 
intentness. 

"  What  are  you  looking  at  there,  bovs  ?  " 
said  Jonas,  with  great  surprise. 

"  O,  we  are  looking  to  see  the  bees  come 
out." 

"  The  bees  come  out !  "  said  Jonas. 

"  Yes,"  said  Rollo  ;  "  that  is  our  bee-hive, 
- —  honey-pot  we  call  it.  We  have  put  some 
bees  in  it." 

Here  Jonas  burst  into  a  loud,  and  long, 
and  apparently  incontrollable  fit  of  laughter. 
Henry  and  Rollo  looked  upon  him  with 
an  expression  of  ludicrous  gravity  and  per- 
plexity. 

"  What  are  you  laughing  at  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

Jonas  could  hardly  control  himself  suffi- 
ciently to  speak  ;  but  presently  he  succeeded 
in  asking  Rollo  if  he  supposed  that  bees 
would  make  honey  there. 

"  Certainly  I  do,"  said  Rollo,  with  a  posi- 
tive air.  "  Why  should  they  not  ?  They 
don't  care  what  shape  their  hive  is,  or  what 
it  is  made  of,  and  this  flower-pot  is  as  good 
as  any  thing  else.  There !  there !  see, 
Henry,"  he  exclaimed,  interrupting  himself, 


THE    BEE-HIVE.  121 

and  pointing  down  to  the  flower-pot,  M  one 
is  coming  out." 

Henry  and  Jonas  both  looked,  and  they 
saw  a  poor,  forlorn-looking  bee  cautiously 
putting  forth  his  head  at  the  hole,  and  then 
slowly  crawling  out.  He  came  on  until  he 
was  fairly  out  of  the  hole,  and  then,  extend- 
ing his  wings,  rose  and  flew  away  through 
the  air. 

Here  Jonas  burst  out  again  in  a  fit  of 
laughter.      » 

"You  needn't  laugh,  Jonas,"  said  Rollo ; 
"  he'll  come  back  again ;  I  know  he  will. 
That's  the  way  they  always  do." 

"  And  you  suppose  that  the  bees  will  fill 
up  the  flower-pot  with  honey  ?  "  said  Jonas. 

"  Yes,"  said  Rollo  ;  "  and  then  I  shall  take 
it  away  without  killing  any  of  the  bees.  I 
read  how  to  do  it  in  a  book." 

**  How  shall  you  do  it  ?  "  said  Jonas. 

"  Why,  when  this  honey-pot  is  full  of 
honey,  I  shall  get  another,  and  put  on  the 
top  of  it,  bottom  upwards.  Then  the  bees 
will  work  up  into  that,  and  come  out  at  the 
upper  hole.  When  they  get  fairly  at  work 
in  the  upper  hive,  then  I  shall  get  Henry  to 

/        n 


122  THE    BEE-HIVE. 

hold  it,  while  I  slip  the  lower  one  out,  and 
put  the  upper  one  down  in  its  place." 

As  Rollo  was  speaking  these  words,  in 
order  to  show  Jonas  more  exactly  how  he 
meant  to  perform  the  operation,  he  took  hold 
of  the  flower-pot  with  both  his  hands,  and 
slid  it  suddenly  off  of  the  seat  Now  it 
happened  that  the  poor  bees  that  were 
inside,  chilled  with  the  dampness  and  cold, 
were  nearly  all  crawling  about  upon  the 
seat ;  and  when  Rollo  suddenly  moved  the 
flower-pot  along,  forgetting  for  a  moment 
what  there  was  inside,  the  rough  edges  of 
the  flower-pot  bruised  and  ground  them  to 
death,  and  they  dropped  down  upon  the 
walk,  some  dead,  some  buzzin-g  a  little,  and 
one  trying  to  crawl. 

"  There  now,  Rollo,"  said  Henry,  in  a 
tone  of  great  disappointment  and  sorrow, 
"  now  you  have  killed  all  our  bees !  " 

Rollo  looked  astonished  enough.  He  had 
no  idea  of  such  a  catastrophe ;  and  he  and 
Henry  both  at  the  same  instant  took  up  the 
honey-pot  to  see  if  any  of  the  bees  had  es- 
caped destruction.     Their  eyes  fell    at  the 


THE    BEE-HIVE.  125 

same  moment,  upon  one  solitary  bee  that  was 
standing  upon  the  inside  of  the  flower-pot. 
His  attention  had  been  arrested  by  the  sud- 
den glare  of  light,  and  so,  just  as  Rollo  and 
Henry  first  observed  him,  and  before  they 
had  time  to  put  the  flower-pot  down  again, 
he  spread  his  wings  and  flew  out  towards 
them. 

Down  dropped  the  flower-pot.  The  boys 
started.  "  Run  !  "  exclaimed  Jonas,  follow- 
ing them  with  shouts  of  laughter,  "  run,  run, 
boys,  for  dear  life  !  "  and  away  they  all  went 
towards  the  garden  gate. 

The  bee,  however,  was  not  following 
them.  His  only  object  was  to  get  away. 
He  flew  in  another  direction ;  but  Rollo, 
Henry,  and  Jonas  did  not  stop  to  look  behind 
them.  They  kept  on  running,  until  Jonas 
was  well  on  his  way  towards  the  pasture, 
and  Rollo  and  Henry  were  safe  in  the  shed. 
And  this  was  the  last  time  that  Rollo  ever 
attempted  to  make  up  a  hive  of  bees. 
11* 


126 


JONAS'S    MAGNET 


One  evening,  after  tea,  Rollo  was  seated 
upon  his  cricket,  before  the  fire,  reading. 
His  mother  was  upon  the  sofa,  also  reading, 
and  so  the  room  was  very  still. 

By  and  by,  Rollo  finished  his  book.  It 
was  quite  a  small  story-book,  and  he  had 
been  reading  it  some  time,  and  so  he  had 
got  to  the  end.  He  laid  the  book  down> 
therefore,  upon  the  table,  and  began  to  con- 
sider what  he  should  do  next. 

"  Mother,"  said  Rollo,  "  what  shall  I  do  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  his  mother ;  "  you 
must  contrive  some  way  to  amuse  yourself, 
for  I  am  busy  reading,  now." 

Rollo  sat  still,  looking  at  the  fire  a  few 
minutes,  and  then  he  thought  he  would  go 
out  into  the  kitchen,  and  see  what  Nathan 
was  about.  Accordingly,  he  went  into  the 
kitchen.  Dorothy  was  at  work,,  making 
some  bread  for  the  next  day.  Jonas  was 
bringing  in  wood.     Nathan  was  sitting  upon 


JONAS'S     MAGNET.  127 

the  floor  before  the  fire,  very  much  inter- 
ested in  looking  at  something  which  he  held 
in  his  hand. 

"  What  have  you  got,  Nathan  ?  "  said 
Rollo. 

"I  am  seeing  this  nail  stick  on,"  said 
Nathan. 

"  Stick  on  !  "  said  Rollo  ;  "  what  does  the 
child  mean  ?  "  He  accordingly  came  up  to 
Nathan,  and  found  that  he  had  a  smooth,  flat 
bar  of  steel,  not  very  regular  in  its  shape,  in 
one  hand,  and  a  nail  in  the  other ;  and  he 
was  amusing  himself  with  applying  the  nail 
to  the  bar  of  steel,  and  seeing  it  adhere. 

"  It  is  a  magnet,"  said  Rollo.  "  What  a 
big  magnet !  Where  did  you  get  it,  Na- 
than ? " 

"  Jonas  gave  it  to  me,"  said  Nathan. 

"  Let  me  try  it,"  said  Rollo.  And  he 
stooped  down  by  the  side  of  Nathan,  and 
offered  to  take  away  the  magnet. 

But  Nathan  held  it  off  upon  one  side,  and 
said,  "No,  no  ;  I  must  have  it.  Jonas  gave 
it  to  me." 

"  Well,  Thanny,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  won't 
take  it  away  ;  only  you  let  me  sit  here  and 
see  you  play  with  it." 


123 


So  Rollo  sat  still,  and  did  not  molest  Na- 
than, but  only  looked  on  and  saw  him  touch 
the  little  nail  to  the  bar,  and  leave  it  hang- 
ing there.  Rollo  knew  it  was  a  magnet,  for 
he  had  heard  of  magnets,  though  he  had  never 
before  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  one.  As 
Nathan  found  that  Rollo  was  not  going  to 
take  the  magnet  away  from  him,  he  soon 
ceased  to  appear  afraid  of  him,  and  presently 
he  let  Rollo  have  the  magnet  in  his  hands. 
Rollo  said  he  only  wanted  to  look  at  it  a 
moment,  to  see  what  made  the  nail  stick  on. 

He  examined  the  steel  bar  carefully.  It 
was  not  quite  a  foot  long,  and  was  shaped 
like  a  common  flat  ruler  ;  only,  instead  of 
being  straight  from  end  to  end,  it  was 
swelled  out  a  little  along  in  the  middle.  On 
looking  at  the  bar  very  attentively,  Rollo 
observed  some  very  fine,  hair-like  lines,  cross- 
ing each  other,  so  as  to  produce  the  appear- 
ance of  fine  net-work.  Rollo  supposed  that 
this  was  what  caused  the  magnet  to  take  up 
the  nail.  He  observed  that  there  was  one 
place,  near  the  middle  of  the  bar,  where  this 
net-work  was  more  distinct  and  strong  than 
in  the  other  parts  of  the  bar,  and  so  he  put 
the  nail  there,  expecting  that  it  would  be 


JONAS's     MAGNET.  129 

attracted  very  strongly.  But  he  was  sur- 
prised at  observing  that  it  was  not  attracted 
there  at  all.  He  then  tried  it  at  different 
places,  all  along  the  bar,v  and  he  found  that 
it  was  not  attracted  any  where  in  the  mid- 
dle, but  only  at  the  two  ends. 

While  he  was  wondering  what  could  be 
the  cause  of  this,  he  heard  the  front  door 
open,  and  he  knew  that  his  father  had  come 
home.  So  he  jumped  up  and  ran  off  into 
the  entry,  Nathan  following  him,  to  show 
his  father  the  magnet.  His  father  was  busy 
putting  away  his  coat  and  hat,  and  told  the 
boys  to  go  into  the  parlor,  and  he  would 
come  in,  in  a  moment,  and  see  it.  When 
he  came  in,  he  sat  down  before  the  fire,  and 
took  the  magnet,  Rollo  and  Nathan  standing 
by  his  side,  and  looking  on  with  eager  cu- 
riosity. 

Rollo 's  father  examined  the  magnet  from 
end  to  end,  very  carefully,  for  some  time, 
without  speaking.     At  length,  he  said, 

"It  is  an  old  file." 

"  An  old  file  !  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father.  "  Some  of  Jonas's 
work,  I  suppose." 


130  jonas's 

"  Yes,  sir,"  replied  Rollo ;  "at  least  it  is 
Jonas's  magnet.-'' 

"  There  you  see  the  marks,"  continued 
his  father,  pointing  to  the  net-work,  "  of  the 
old  file  teeth.  Jonas  ground  them  nearly 
out." 

11  Are  those  the  marks  of  the  file  teeth  ?  " 
said  Rollo.  "  I  thought  it  was  the  mag- 
netism." 

"  No,"  said  his  father,  smiling,  "  those 
are  the  traces  of  the  file  teeth,  undoubtedly. 
You  may  go  and  ask  Jonas  how  he  got  his 
magnet." 

So  away  went  Rollo  and  Nathan  in  pur- 
suit of  Jonas.  They  found  him  in  the  kitch- 
en, just  arranging  his  wood  for  the  morning 
fires.  They  asked  him  where  he  got  his 
magnet,  and  Jonas  replied  as  follows  :  — 

"  Why,  the  other  day,  I  went  into  town 
with  your  father's  watch,  to  get  a  new  crys- 
tal put  in ;  and  when  I  was  at  the  watch- 
maker's, I  saw  a  curious-shaped  piece  of  iron 
hanging  up.  I  asked  the  man  what  it  was. 
He  said  it  was  a  magnet,  that  he  kept  to 
touch  needles.  Then  he  gave  me  a  nail, 
and  let  me  see  how  the  magnet  would  attract 
it.    He  told  me,  too,  that  if  I  had  a  knife, 


131 


and  would  rub  my  knife  on  the  magnet,  the 
knife  would  attract,  too  ;  and  so  I  did  rub  it, 
and  I  found  that  my  knife  would  attract  the 
nail,  though  not  very  strong.  Then  I  asked 
him  if  any  piece  of  iron  would  attract,  aftei 
it  was  rubbed  upon  the  magnet ;  and  he  said 
that  iron  would  not,  but  that  any  piece  of 
steel  would.  He  told  me  that  if  I  would 
bring  a  larger  piece  of  steel,  when  I  came 
after  the  watch,  he  would  rub  it  for  me,  and 
then  I  should  have  a  larger  magnet.  I  told 
him  I  had  not  any  steel.  But  he  said  any 
old  file  would  do,  and  that  I  might  grind 
the  sides  and  edges  a  little,  and  make  it 
smooth. 

"  So,  when  I  came  home,  I  found  some 
old  files  in  the  barn.  Some  were  three-cor- 
nered, and  some  were  flat.  I  thought  the  flat 
would  be  the  best  shape,  and  I  asked  your 
father  if  he  would  give  me  one  of  them. 
He  said  he  would ;  and  so  I  ground  the 
ends  square,  and  the  sides  smooth,  upon  the 
grindstone.  Then,  when  I  went  after  the 
watch,  the  man  rubbed  it  for  me,  and  it 
makes  a  very  good  magnet." 

Then  Rollo  and  Nathan  went  back,  and 
repeated  this  story  to  their  father. 


132 


"  Very  well,"  said  their  father ;  "  that  was 
a  very  good  way  to  get  a  magnet.  I  re- 
member giving  Jonas  the  file ;  but  I  did  not 
know  what  he  wanted  it  for." 

"I  think  a  magnet  is  a  very  curious 
thing,"  said  Hollo.  "  See  how  the  naU 
sticks  to  it !  " 

"  There  are  a  great  many  other  things 
curious  about  it,"  said  his  father,  "  besides 
that." 

"  What  ? "  said  Rollo. 

"I  should  want  some  other  apparatus  to 
show  you,"  replied  his  father. 

"And  can't  you  get  the  other  appara- 
tus?" 

"  I  don't  know.  Perhaps  mother  might 
get  it.  Yes,  I'll  tell  you  what  we  will  do. 
I  will  name  some  things  which  mother  may 
prepare,  and  you  may  get  them  together 
upon  the  table  in  the  kitchen,  when  they 
have  got  the  kitchen  all  in  order.  Then  I 
will  come  out,  and  give  you  all,  out  there,  a 
lecture  upon  magnetism." 

Rollo  and  Nathan  were  exceedingly 
pleased  with  this  plan  ;  and  even  Rollo's 
mother  looked  somewhat  gratified.  She  said 
6he  did  not  know  much  about  magnetism, 


133 


and  she  meant  to  go  out  into  the  kitchen 
herself,  and  hear  the  lecture. 

"  And  what  things  shall  we  get  ? "  said 
Rollo. 

u  Two  or  three  needles,"  replied  his  fa- 
ther, "  some  fine,  and  some  coarse ;  some 
thread,  a  saucer  nearly  full  of  water,  a  cork, 
the  sand-box  off  of  my  table,  and  a  sheet  of 
white  paper.  Put  them  all  in  good  order 
upon  the  table,  and  set  the  chairs  around  it. 
Then,  when  all  is  ready,  come  and  tell  me." 

So  Rollo's  mother  put  down  her  book  and 
went  to  help  Rollo  collect  the  articles  which 
his  father  had  said  he  should  require.  She 
began  to  look  into  her  needle  book  for  the 
needles  and  thread,  while  Rollo  went  for  the 
sand-box.  When  Rollo  came  back  with  the 
sand-box  and  the  sheet  of  paper  in  his 
hand,  he  found  Nathan  with  his  high  chair, 
at  the  kitchen  door,  trying  to  get  in. 

"What  are  you  doing  here,  Nathan?" 
said  Rollo. 

"  I  want  to  get  my  high  chair  in,"  he 
replied. 

The  truth  was,  that  Nathan,  having  learned 
from  the  conversation  what  was  going  on, 
was  eager  to  secure  a  good  seat  for  himself, 
12 


134  JONAs's    MAGNET. 

and  so  he  was  attempting  to  drag  out  the 
high  chair  which  was  kept  in  the  parlor  for 
him  to  sit  up  to  the  table  in. 

Rollo,  as  he  happened  to  feel  rather  good- 
natured  than  otherwise,  just  then,  after  put- 
ting down  his  things,  helped  Nathan  get  his 
chair  through  the  door,  and  placed  it  up  at 
the  kitchen  table,  which  stood  out  in  the 
middle  of  the  floor.  He  then  went  into  a 
closet,  and  opened  a  little  drawer,  where  he 
knew  corks  were  kept,  and  brought  out  one 
or  two,  selecting  the  cleanest  and  softest 
that  he  could  find.  When  he  came  back,  he 
found  Nathan  pouring  out  some  black  sand, 
from  the  sand-box,  upon  the  sheet  of  paper. 

"Now,  Nathan,"  exclaimed  Rollo,  run- 
ning up  to  him,  and  seizing  the  sand-box, 
"  you  are  a  very  naughty  boy."  And  he  at- 
tempted to  take  away  the  sand-box  violently. 

But  Nathan,  though  he  knew  very  well 
that  he  was  doing  wrong,  did  not  seem  fully 
disposed  to  admit  Rollo 's  authority  to  set 
him  right  by  violence.  He  resisted ;  and, 
in  the  struggle,  the  table  was  pushed  away, 
and  the  water  in  the  saucer  spilled  over. 
The  water  ran  along  under  the  sheet  of 
paper.     Nathan,  seeing  the  mischief  that  had 


JONAs's    MAGNET.  135 

been  done,  was  a  little  frightened,  and  re- 
leased his  hold.  Rollo  then  took  up  the 
paper,  which  had  sand  upon  the  upper  side, 
and  water  dripping  off  from  the  under  side, 
saying,    - 

"  There,  Nathan,  now  see  what  you  have 
done  !  " 

"I  didn't  do  it,"  said  Nathan. 

"  You  did,"  said  Rollo. 

"  I  didn't,"  said  Nathan. 

Hereupon,  Jonas  came  up  to  the  table  to 
see  what  was  the  matter.  Each  of  the  boys 
told  his  story. 

"Now  we  are  in  pretty  trouble,"  said 
Jonas  ;  "we  thought  we  were  going  to  have 
a  fine  lecture  ;  instead  of  that,  there  are  two 
boys  to  be  punished,  and  wet  paper  to  be 
dried." 

"  Punished  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"Yes,"  said  Jonas,  "Nathan  for  touching 
the  sand-box,  and  you  for  touching  him." 

"  Why,  he  was  pouring  out  all  the  sand," 
said  Rollo,  "and  I  was  only  trying  to  stop 
him." 

"  Yes,  but  you  know,"  said  Jonas,  "  that 
you  had  no  right  to  stop  him  by  violence. 
That  always  makes  the  difficulty  worse." 


136 


Here  Rollo  began  to  look  pretty  sober. 
He  knew  that  he  had  done  what  he  had 
very  often  been  forbidden  to  do. 

"Now,"  said  Jonas,  "we  can  wait  and 
tell  your  mother  about  it,  when  she  comes 
out,  or  we  can  just  settle  it  all  among  our- 
selves." 

"  How  ? "  said  Rollo,  with  an  anxious 
look. 

"  Why,  I  can  dry  the  paper  and  the  sand," 
said  Jonas,  "if  you  and  Nathan  will  only 
punish  the  boys." 

"  How  shall  we  do  it  ? "  asked  Rollo, 
looking  up  with  a  faint  and  doubtful  smile. 

"I  think  a  pretty  good  punishment,"  said 
Jonas,  "  would  be  for  you  and  Nathan  to 
go  and  sit  in  two  corners  of  the  room,  with 
your  faces  to  the  wall,  until  I  get  the  paper 
and  sand  dry  —  if  you  think  that  would  be 
punishment  enough." 

"Well,"  said  Rollo, — his  eye  brighten- 
ing at  the  idea  of  winding  up  so  unpleasant 
a  business  so  easily,  —  "  well,  Nathan,  let's 
go." 

Nathan  was  ready,  and  so  he  climbed 
down  from  his  high  chair,  and  as  Rollo  went 
to  one  corner  of  the  room,  he  went  to  the 


137 


other,  and  they  took  their  places,  as  Jonas 
had  directed ;  only  Nathan  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  of  looking  round,  now  and 
then,  to  see  how  Jonas  got  on  with  the 
drying  of  the  paper.  They,  however,  bore 
their  self-inflicted  punishment  very  patient- 
ly ;  and  when  Jonas  had  got  the  paper  dried, 
and  the  table  wiped  down,  and  every  thing 
replaced  as  it  was  before,  he  told  them  that 
it  was  time  for  them  to  get  up  again.  The 
punishment  was  not  very  severe,  it  is  true  ; 
but  then,  it  was  probably  a  pretty  efficacious 
one,  in  respect  to  its  effect  in  impressing  it 
upon  Nathan's  mind  that  he  must  not  touch 
things  without  leave,  arid  upon  Rollo's,  that, 
when  Nathan  is  doing  wrong,  he  must  not 
set  him  right  by  violence. 

In  a  short  time  after  this,  the  things  were 
all  ready  upon  the  table,  the  chairs  were 
placed  around  it,  and  Rollo  went  to  call  his 
father.  He  found  him  writing  a  letter.  As 
soon  as  he  reached  the  end  of  a  sentence,  he 
came  out,  and  took  his  place  at  the  table. 
Rollo's  mother  sat  next  to  him  at  the  same 
side  of  the  table,  and  Jonas  and  Dorothy 
in  two  chairs,  on  the  opposite  side.      Rollo 

/*  12* 


138  JONAS'S    MAGNET. 

then  was  placed  at  one  end  of  the  table, 
and  Nathan,  in  his  high  chair,  at  the  other. 

Just  then,  however,  Rollo's  mother  ob- 
served that  the  table  was  wet  a  little. 

"  Why,  Rollo,"  said  she,  "how  came  the 
table  wet  ? " 

"  Why,  Nathan  and  I  did  it,"  said  he. 

"  How  ?  "  said  his  mother. 

"Why,  we  did  it  —  eh — pulling.  But 
Jonas  has  settled  it  all,  mother." 

"  Ah  !  Jonas  has  settled  it,  has  he  ?  very 
well.  Then  we  will  all  now  attend  to  the 
lecture." 


139 


MAGNETISM 

Hollo's  father  looked  over  the  things 
which  had  been  arranged  upon  the;  table, 
for  a  moment,  in  silence,  and  then ,  took  up 
Jonas 's  magnet. 

"  This  bar  is  what  they  call  a  magnet," 
said  he ;  "  but  all  the  magnetism  is  in  the 
two  ends." 

"It  is  ? "  said  Rollo  ;  " and  what  is  the 
reason  of  that  ?  " 

"You  can  see  that  it  is  so,"  said  his 
father,  without  answering  Rollo's  question, 
"  in  this  way." 

So  he  laid  a  small  nail  down  upon  the 
table,  and  then  touched  the  middle  of  the 
magnet  to  the  nail.  It  was  not  attracted  at 
all.  Then  he  moved  it  along  a  little,  to- 
wards one  end,  and  touched  it  again.  Still 
it  was  not  attracted.  Then  he  moved  it 
along  farther  and  farther ;  but  the  nail  was 
not  attracted  until  he  got  to  the  end  of  the 


140  MAGNETISM. 

bar,  and  then  the  nail  hopped  up  and  ad- 
hered to  it  quite  strongly. 

"  How  curious  !  "  said  Rollo. 

His  father  then  repeated  the  same  experi- 
ment with  the  other  half  of  the  bar,  and 
found  the  result  the  same.  The  nail  did 
not  appear  to  be  at  all  attracted  until  he 
reached  the  end,  and  then  it  was  lifted  and 
held  by  this  end,  just  as  it  was  by  the  other. 

"  So  that,  you  see,"  said  Rollo's  father, 
"that  the  attractive  power  of  the  magnet 
resides  in  the  ends." 

"  Well,  father,  what  is  the  reason  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  his  father. 

"  Don't  you  know,  father  ? "  said  Rollo. 
"  I  thought  you  were  going  to  tell  us  all 
about  it." 

"No,"  said  his  father.  "1  only  know  a 
very  little  about  it,  myself.  I  am  going  to 
explain  to  you  some  of  the  facts,  —  such  as 
I  happen  to  know.  So  you  must  all  remem- 
ber this  fact,  that  in  the  magnet,  the  attrac- 
tive power  is  not  distributed  over  the  whole 
mass,  but  resides  only  in  the  opposite  ends. 
These  ends  are  called  poles.''1 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Rollo,  "  we  will  remem- 
ber." 


MAGNETISM.  141 

"  Now  1  can  make  this  apparent  in  another 
way,"  said  his  father.  Then  he  asked 
Rollo's  mother  to  thread  a  needle  ;  and  when 
it  was  threaded,  he  asked  Jonas  to  stand,  up 
and  hold  the  thread  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
let  the  needle  hang  over  the  middle  of  the 
table. 

Then,  when  the  needle  was  still,  he 
brought  up  the  middle  of  the  magnet  very 
near  to  the  needle  ;  but  it  did  not  move 
towards  it  at  all.  Then  he  drew  the  mag- 
net along  towards  himself,  keeping  it  at  the 
same  distance  from  the  needle,  and  when 
the  end  of  the  bar  came  opposite  to  the  nee- 
dle, it  immediately  leaped  out  of  its  place, 
and  adhered  strongly  to  it. 

"  There  is  another  way  still,"  continued 
the  lecturer,  "  better  than  either  of  these." 

So  saying,  he  took  off  the  needle,  which 
had  adhered  to  the  magnet,  and  drawing  out 
the  thread ,  he  laid  the  needle  itself  carefully 
away  upon  a  distant  corner  of  the  table. 
Rollo  took  it  up,  and  was  going  to  place  it 
back  with  the  others.  But  his  father  told 
him  to  put  it  down  again,  by  itself,  where 
he  had  placed  it,  and  not  to  touch  any  of  the 
things  without  his  direction. 


142  MAGNETISM. 

"I  am  going  to  show  you  another  way," 
he  added j  "  of  making  it  evident  that  the 
attractive  power  of  the  magnet  resides  at 
or  near  the  poles." 

So  saying,  he  opened  the  sheet  of  paper, 
and  spread  it  out  upon  the  table.  Then  he 
laid  the  magnet  down  upon  it. 

"  Now,  Jonas,"  said  he,  "  sprinkle  some 
sand  upon  it  from  my  sand-box,  carefully, 
and  see  where  the  sand  will  adhere." 

So  Jonas  took  the  sand-box,  and  held  it 
over  the  bar,  not  very  high,  and  moved  it 
slowly  along,  from  one  end  to  the  other,  and 
thus  sanded  the  magnet  all  over.  The  sand 
fell  off  of  it,  however,  freely,  at  every  part 
except  the  ends ;  and  Jonas,  observing  that 
it  seemed  to  adhere  there,  held  the  sand-box 
a  little  longer  over  those  places  ;  and  thus 
there  was  formed  a  sort  of  a  black  bur  at 
the  extremities,  consisting  of  an  accumula- 
tion of  the  black  particles  of  sand.  Rollo's 
father  then  took  up  the  bar  carefully,  and 
passed  it  around,  so  that  all  who  were  seated 
at  the  table  could  examine  it  closely. 

"It  is  thickest  on  all  the  edges  and  cor- 
ners," said  Rollo. 

"  YeS,"  said  his  mother ;  "  and  the  sand 


MAGNETISM. 


143 


forms  little  black  bristles,  pointing  off  in 
every  direction." 

They  all  examined  it  attentively,  and 
observed  the  little  black  bristles  pointing  out 
every  way  from  the  edges  and  corners  at 
the  ends. 

"  This  shows  you,"  said  Rollo's  father, 
"  exactly  how  the  magnetic  power,  so  far  as 
its  attractive  force  on  other  todies  is  con- 
cerned, is  distributed.  You  see  it  resides  in 
the  two  ends,  and  the  two  ends  seem  to  be 
exactly  alike." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Rollo,  "  exactly." 

"  They  seem  to  be  so,"  continued  his  fa- 
ther ;  "  but  the  fact  is,  the  magnetism  of  one 
end  is  very  different  from  that  of  the  other." 

"I  see  that  the  cluster  of  sand  is  a  little 
bigger  at  one  end,  than  it  is  at  the  other," 
said  Rollo's  mother.  She  was  more  observ- 
ing than  the  others,  and  had  noticed  a  little 
difference,  which  had  escaped  the  rest. 

"  That  indicates  only  a  difference  in  de- 
gree," said  Rollo's  father ;  "but  there  is  a 
difference  in  kind." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that,  father  ? " 
asked  Rollo. 

"  Why,  if  the  attractive  powers  at  the  two 


144  MAGNETISM. 

ends  were  both  alike  in  their  nature,  only 
one  was  stronger  than  the  other,  then  the 
difference  would  be  in  degree ;  but  there  is.  a 
difference  in  the  nature  of  the  magnetism  it- 
self. In  fact,  the  magnetisms  of  the  two  ends 
are  of  opposite  natures  in  some  respects." 

"  Why,  both  ends  attract  the  sand."  said 
Rollo,  "just  alike." 

"  True,"  said  his  father ;  "  they  seem  to 
attract  the  sand  in  precisely  the  same  way ; 
and,  looking  at  the  bar,  as  I  now  hold  it  up," 
he  added,  "  with  the  sand  adhering  in  the 
same  way  at  the  two  ends,  one  would  sup- 
pose that  they  were  both  magnetic  alike. 
But,  in  fact,  there  is  a  great  difference  be- 
tween them." 

All  the  company  looked  upon  the  two 
ends  of  the  bar,  as  Rollo's  father  held  it  up, 
wondering  how  he  would  show  that  there 
was  any  difference  between  them. 

"  Now,  in  the  first  place,"  he  continued, 
"we  must  get  the  sand  off  of  the  ends.  Do 
you  think  you  can  get  it  off  for  me,  Rollo  ? " 
said  he. 

Rollo  took  the  bar  very  eagerly,  and  at- 
tempted to  brush  the  sand  back  upon  the 
paper.      He   succeeded   in   brushing   off  a 


MAGNETISM.  '  £5 

little  of  it ;  but  the  greater  portion  remained. 
When  he  rubbed  upon  one  side,  it  moved 
round  to  the  other ;  and  he  could  not  get  it 
off. 

"Hand  it  to  me,"  said  his  father,  "and  I 
will  show  you  how  it  can  be  done." 

He  also  asked  Jonas  to  hand  him  the 
tongs,  which  were  standing  by  the  side  of  the 
fire.  He  then  held  the  tongs  over  the  sheet 
of  paper,  in  a  horizontal  position,  and  gently 
rapped  the  end  of  the  magnet  against  them, 
letting  the  end  project  a  little  over  the  tongs. 
This  knocked  all  the  sand  off,  and  left  the 
bar  clean  as  it  was  before. 

"  Now  let  me  see,"  said  he,  "  what  was 
it  that  I  was  going  to  tell  you  next  ? " 

"  You  were  going  to  show  us,"  said  Rol- 
lo's  mother,  "that  there  are  two  different 
kinds  of  magnetisms  in  the  two  ends  of  the 
bar." 

"  O,  yes,"  said  he.  "In  order  to  do  this, 
I  must  poise  a  needle  in  a  new  way." 

He  then  took  up  one  of  the  corks  which 
Rollo  had  put  upon  the  table.  From  one 
end  of  this  cork,  he  cut  off,  with  his  pen- 
knife, a  round,  flat  piece.  It  was  about  as 
large  around  as  a  wafer,  but  somewhat  thick- 
er 13 


14  *  MAGNETISM. 

er.  He  cut  a  little  groove  along  the  upper 
side  of  this,  and  laid  the  same  needle  which 
he  had  before  used,  and  which  he  had  put 
away  upon  the  corner  of  the  table,  into  this 
groove.  Then  he  put  the  whole  carefully 
into  the  saucer  of  water,  which  he  had  pre- 
viously drawn  up  towards  him. 

"There,"  said  he,  "we  call  a  cork  like 
that,  afloat ;  because  it  is  intended  to  float 
a  needle  upon.  Now,  you  see,  the  needle 
being  supported  by  the  cork,  and  the  corK 
floating  freely  in  the  water,  the  needle  is  at 
liberty  to  move  in  any  way." 

Nathan  thought  it  was  a  very  curious  ex- 
periment to  poise  a  needle  so,  upon  a  piece 
of  cork, — even  without  the  magnetism. 
And  he  watched  it  as  it  slowly  moved 
about,  with  a  face  full  of  interest  and  cu- 
riosity. 

The  needle  swung  round  a  little  one  way 
and  the  other,  and  finally  came  to  a  state  of 
rest.  Then  Rollo's  father  held  the  magnet 
in  his  hands,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  point 
it  towards  the  needle,  and  then  gradually 
brought  it  down  near  the  water,  just  by  the 
side  of  the  point  of  the  needle.  The  point 
immediately  began  to  move  slowly  towards 


MAGNETISM.  147 

the  bar ;  but  Rollo's  father  lifted  it  up  sud- 
denly, before  the  needle  had  time  to  touch 
it.  Then  he  brought  the  same  end  of  the 
magnet  down  upon  the  other  side  of  the 
point  of  the  needle,  and  that  drew  it  back 
agarn. 

"  There,"  said  he,  "  you  all  see  that  the 
point  of  the  needle  is  attracted  by  the  bar, 
whichever  side  I  put  it." 

They  all  said  they  saw  it  very  plainly. 

"  Now,"  said  he,  "  I  am  going  to  turn  the 
magnet,  and  bring  the  other  end  of  it  down 
to  the  point  of  the  needle ;  and  if  the  mag- 
netism at  this  end  is  the  same  with  that  in 
the  other,  the  point  of  the  needle  will  of 
course  be  attracted  by  this  end  too." 

"  Certainly,"  said  Rollo's  mother. 

Then  he  brought  down  the  other  end  of 
the  bar  towards  the  needle.  This  other  end 
was  a  little  bigger  than  the  one  which  he 
had  tried  first,  because  the  file  had  been  a 
little  bigger  at  that  end.  But  the  needle, 
instead  of  being  drawn  towards  it,  as  it  had 
been  towards  the  other  end,  began  to  move 
slowly  away  from  it. 

"  Why,  it  is  going  away,"  said  Rollo. 


148  MAGNETISM. 

His  father  did  not  answer,  but  immedi- 
ately raised  the  bar  and  put  it  down  upon 
the  other  side  of  the  point,  and  then  the 
point  began  to  move  away  back  again  ; 
being  evidently  driven  away  from  the  large 
end  of  the  magnet,  on  whichever  side  it  was 
presented. 

Then  Rollo's  father  reversed  the  magnet 
again  ;  that  is,  he  brought  the  smaller  end 
towards  the  needle  as  at  first.  The  point  of 
the  needle  was  now  attracted,  that  is,  drawn 
towards  the  magnet ;  and  then  when  he 
changed  it  again,  and  brought  the  large 
end  to  the  needle,  it  was  always  repelled  ; 
that  is,  driven  away  again. 

"Now  you  see,"  he  said,  "that  the  small 
end  of  the  magnet  attracts  the  point  of  the 
needle,  and  the  large  end  drives  it  away. 
That  shows  that  the  magnetism  in  the  two 
ends  is  of  two  different  kinds. 

H  And  now,"  he  continued,  "  there  is  one 
thing  more  which  is  remarkable  about  it ; 
and  I  want  you  to  observe  it  very  carefully. 
You  see,"  he  says,  "  that  the  small  end  of 
the  magnet  attracts  the  point  of  the  needle. 
But  if  I  try  it  now  upon  the  other  end  of 


MAGNETISM.  149 

the  needle,  where  the  eye  is,  it  will  repel 
that,  just  as  the  large  end  of  the  magnet 
repels  the  point.'' 

He  tried  it,  and  the  result  was  just  as  he 
had  said.  And  he  repeated  the  experiment 
in  a  great  many  ways,  and  they  always 
found  that  the  large  end  of  the  magnet 
would  draw  the  eye  of  the  needle  towards 
it,  and  drive  the  point  away  ;  and  the  small 
and  of  the  magnet  would  draw  the  point  of 
the  needle,  and  drive  the  eye  away.  This 
proved,  as  Rollo's  father  said,  some  great 
difference  between  the  magnetisms  of  the 
two  ends.  "And  you  see,"  he  added,  "  that 
it  is  a  difference  in  kind,  not  merely  a  differ- 
ence in  degree" 

"  But  one  thing  seems  strange  to  me,"  said- 
Rollo's  mother,  "  and  that  is,  that  both  ends 
of  the  magnet  don't  attract  the  point  of  the 
needle,  just  as  both  of  them  attracted  the 
nail." 

a  And  the  sand,"  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  added  his  mother.  "  When  you 
brought  both  ends  of  the  magnet,  one  after 
the  other,  to  the  nail,  they  both  attracted 
it." 

13* 


150  MAGNETISM. 

"  And  so  they  did  the  needle  which  hung 
down  by  the  thread,"  said  Jonas. 

"  Yes,"  said  Rollo's  mother ;  "  but  now 
this  needle,  that  is  floating  upon  the  water, 
is  half  attracted,  and  half  repelled." 

"The  reason  is,"  said  Rollo's  father, 
"  that  the  needle,  that  is  floating  upon  the 
water,  is  a  magnet  itself,  and  has  two  mag- 
netic poles  ;  but  the  sand,  and  the  nail  and 
the  needle  that  Jonas  held  up  by  the  thread, 
were  not  magnets.  They  were  only  com- 
mon pieces  of  iron  and  steel." 

"  Why,  father,"  said  Rollo,  "that  was  the 
very  same  needle  ;  you  laid  it  away  upon 
the  corner  of  the  table."  # 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father;  "but  it  was  not  a 
magnet  then." 

"  When  ?  "  asked  Rollo. 

"Why,  when  Jonas  held  it  up  by  the 
thread." 

"And  is  it  a  magnet  now  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father.  "  We  will  see  if 
it  is  not." 

So  he  took  the  needle  off  from  the  float, 
and  put  it  upon  the  paper.  He  then  sprinkled 
a  little  sand  over  it,  from  the  sand-box,  and, 


MAGNETISM.  151 

upon  taking  it  up,  they  all  saw  that  there 
was  a  little  tuft  of  black  sand  both  upon  the 
point  and  at  the  eye,  showing  that  it  was 
magnetic  at  both  ends. 

"  It  became  magnetic,"  said  Rollo's  father 
,"  only  by  being  touched  by  the  bar  magnet  , 
and  that  was  the  reason  why  I  put  it  away 
by  itself  as  soon  as  it  had  touched  the  bar. 
I  did  not  want  to  have  it  mixed  with  the 
other  needles,  which  had  not  been  touched, 
and  which,  of  course,  were  not  magnetic. 
Now,  if  I  take  one  of  the  needles  which  has 
not  been  touched,  and  put  it  upon  the  float, 
you  will  see  that  both  ends  of  it  will  be  at- 
tracted by  both  ends  of  the  bar." 

So  he  placed  away  the  magnetized  needle 
upon  the  corner  of  the  table  again,  and  took 
another  one,  and  placed  it  very  carefully  upon 
the  float.  Then  he  brought  down  one  end 
of  Jonas's  magnet  very  near  the  point  of  the 
needle.  It  attracted  it.  Then  he  brought 
it  down  very  near  the  eye  of  the  needle. 
It  attracted  the  eye  too.  Then  he  turned 
the  magnet,  and  tried  the  other  end,  and  he 
found  that  that  end  also  would  attract  both 
the  eye  and  the  point  of  the  needle. 


152  MAGNETISM. 

"  Try  the  magnetized  needle,  and  see  if 
that  will  attract  it  too,"  said  Rollo's  mother. 

Then  Rollo's  father  took  the  magnetized 
needle  from  the  corner  again,  and  brought 
the  two  ends  of  that,  one  after  another,  near 
to  the  ends  of  the  needle  upon  the  float.  It. 
attracted  them  just  as  Jonas 's  magnet  had 
done,  only  a  great  deal  more  feebly. 

"  So,  you  see  that  this  needle  is  really  a 
little  magnet,  just  like  Jonas's  great  one." 

"  Only  there  is  no  proof  that  it  has  the 
two  different  kinds  of  magnetism  in  the  two 
ends,"  said  Rollo's  mother. 

"We  can  easily  show  that,"  said  his 
father.  He  asked  Dorothy  to  get  another 
saucer  full  of  water,  while  he  prepared 
another  float.  Then  he  put  the  magnetized 
needle  upon  the  new  float,  leaving  the  un- 
magnetized  one  upon  the  old  float.  They 
both  looked  almost  precisely  alike,  each 
upon  its  own  little  disc  of  cork  in  its  saucer 
of  water. 

"  There,"  said  he,  "  you  cannot  see  any 
difference  between  them  j  but  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  difference  between  them  ;  for 
one  is  only  a  common  needle  of  steel,  but 


WAGNETISM.  153 

the  other  has  its  two  extremities  magnetic 
in  opposite  ways." 

To  prove  this,  Rollo's  father  brought  one 
end  of  the  bar  to  the  point  of  the  magnetized 
needle,  and  the  point  was  repelled.  He 
brought  it  then  to  the  eye  of  the  same 
needle,  and  it  attracted  it.  Then  he  brought 
the  same  end  of  the  bar,  first  to  the  point,  and 
then  to  the  eye  of  the  unmagnetic  needle,  and 
it  attracted  them  both  ;  so  it  was  evident  that 
there  was  a  considerable  difference,  in  reality, 
between  the  condition  of  the  two,  though 
there  was  no  difference  in  external  appear- 
ance. 

"Now  you  see,  from  all  this,"  added  Rol- 
lo's father,  "  that  when  a  magnet  touches  a 
piece  of  steel,  like  a  needle,  it  immediately 
makes  it  a  magnet  itself;  that  is,  it  makes 
the  two  ends  magnetic,  one  having  one  kind 
of  magnetism,  and  the  other  the  other  kind  ; 
and  then,  if  you  take  two  magnets,  and  bring 
those  two  poles  which  have  the  same  mag- 
netism together,  they  repel  one.  another ;  and 
if  you  bring  those  together  which  have  dif- 
ferent magnetisms,  they  attract  each  other." 

"How  do  you  know  that  they   are  the 


154  MAGNETISM. 

same  magnetisms  that  repel,  and  different 
that  attract  ?  "  said  Rollo's  mother. 

"  I  will  show  you,"  said  his  father. 

Then  he  took  the  needles  that  he  bad  used 
off  from  their  floats,  and  laid  them  away. 
He  took  next  two  new  needles,  exactly  of 
a  size,  and  he  held  them  together  between 
his  thumb  and  finger,  with  the  eyes  pro- 
jecting together.  Then  he  rubbed  them 
once  or  twice  upon  the  end  of  Jonas's  mag- 
net, saying, 

"  There,  you  see  I  use  both  of  these 
needles  alike.  Of  course  the  eyes  have  both 
the  same  magnetisms.  Now  you  will  find 
that  when  I  put  one  of  them  upon  the  float, 
and  then  bring  the  eyes  together,  they  will 
repel  each  other  ;  but  an  eye  and  a  point 
will  attract.     So  two  points  will  repel." 

"  But  you  have  not  magnetized  the 
points,"  said  Rollo's  mother. 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father.  "  When  we  mag- 
netize one  end,  the  other  end  becomes 
magnetized,  itself,  in  the  contrary  way." 

So  he  put  one  of  the  needles  upon  the 
float,  and  then  brought  the  eye  of  the  other 
down  very  near  to  its  eye.     It  was  repelled, 


MAGNETISM.  155 

as  he  had  said  it  would  be.  He  then  brought 
the  two  points  together,  and  they  were  re- 
pelled. But  if  he  brought  an  eye  towards  a 
point,  or  a  point  towards  an  eye,  they  were 
attracted. 

"This  is  the  end  of  my  lecture,"  said  he, 
"  for  to-night." 

"  O,  father,"  said  Rollo,  "  a  little  more." 

"No  more  to-night,  only  to  recapitulate," 
said  he. 

"  Recapitulate  ?  what  is  that  ?  " 

"  Why,  "tell  you,  briefly,  the  substance  of 
what  I  have  explained,  so  that  you  may 
remember  it." 

"Well,  father,"  said  Rollo. 

"  In  the  first  place,  a  magnet  has  a  pecu- 
liar and  mysterious  attractive  power  for  iron, 
residing  in  its  two  extremities,  which  are 
called  its  poles  ;  and  the  power  which  resides 
in  one  extremity  is,  in  some  way  or  other, 
opposite  in  its  nature  to  that  of  the  other 
extremity.  Each  of  these  poles  repels  a 
pole  like  itself,  and  attracts  one  different  from 
itself,  in  any  other  magnet." 

Poor  Nathan  could  not  understand  this 
grave,  philosophical  disquisition  very   well, 


156  MAGNETISM. 

and  he  began  to  get  pretty  sleepy.  He  had, 
however,  been  somewhat  amused,  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  time,  in  seeing  the  corks 
float  about  upon  the  water,  with  the  needles 
upon  them.  So  his  father  took  the  needles 
off,  and  let  him  have  the  two  floats  in  one 
of  the  saucers  to  play  with,  a  few  minutes, 
while  Dorothy  put  the  other  things  away. 
He  asked  her  to  put  all  the  things  away  to- 
gether, so  that  they  could  get  them  ready  the 
next  evening,  and  then  he  said  that  perhaps 
he  would  give  them  another  lecture. 


157 


INTELLECTUAL   PHILOSOPHY. 

Rollo's  father  gave  one  or  two  other  lec- 
tures upon  magnetism,  in  the  course  of  which 
Rollo  found  out  a  good  deal  about  the  sub- 
ject ;  and,  having  learned  from  his  father's 
explanations  that  any  magnet,  when  balanced 
freely,  would  point  to  the  north  and  south, 
that  is,  one  end  to  the  north  and  the  other 
to  the  south,  he  determined  to  try  the 
experiment.  He  accordingly  poised  a  needle 
carefully  upon  a  cork,  as  his  father  had  done 
in  his  lecture,  and  put  it  in  a  basin  of  water 
upon  the  platform.  But  he  did  not  succeed 
very  well.  The  needle  would  always  swing 
round,  and  turn  its  point  towards  the  garden 
gate  j  but  Rollo  knew  very  well  that  the 
garden  gate  was  not  north  from  the  platform. 
He  remembered  that  the  North  Star  was 
over  the  barn,  for  he  and  Jonas  had  noticed 
it  particularly  when  they  had  made  the  dial. 
The  needle,  therefore,  ought  to  have  pointed 
towards  the  barn,  according  to  his  father's 
14 


158      INTELLECTUAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

lecture  ;  but  it  would  not.  Rollo  took  up  a 
straw,  and  pushed  the  point  of  the  needle 
round,  and  said,  "  Point  there !  point  there, 
I  tell  you !  "  But  alJ  in  vain.  The  needle 
would  not  heed  either  his  pushing  or  his 
commands  ;  but,  as  soon  as  he  let  it  go,  it 
would  immediately  swing  back  into  its  old 
position,  where  it  pointed  towards  the  garden 
gate. 

Rollo  was  just  about  giving  up  in  despair, 
when  he  saw  his  sister  Mary  coming  in 
from  the  garden  gate,  with  a  book  under 
her  arm. 

"O  Mary,"  said  he,  "what  shall  I  do? 
My  needle  won't  point  right." 

"  Why,  what  is  the  matter  with  it?  "  said 
Mary. 

"  It  will  point  over  towards  the  garden," 
said  Rollo;  "look." 

So  Mary  came  up,  and  looked  at  his  needle. 
She  saw  that  it  was  pointing  towards  the 
garden  gate. 

"  Now  I'll  push  it  away,"  said  Rollo,  "  and 
you  will  see  that  it  comes  directly  back 
again." 

So  he  took  up  his  straw,  and  pushed  the 
point  of  the  needle  away.     The  cork  moved, 


INTELLECTUAL  PHILOSOPHY.      X59 

turning  round  rapidly,  until  at  length  it 
swung  away  towards  one  side  of  the  basin, 
and  then  suddenly  drifted  up  against  the 
side,  and  stuck  there. 

"  That's  another  plague,"  said  Rollo,  "It 
will  run  up  to  the  side  of  the  basin,  and  stick 
there." 

"  What  makes  it  ?  "  said  Mary, 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Rollo. 

Mary  sat  down  upon  the  platform,  and 
examined  the  needle  and  the  surface  of  the 
water  very  carefully.  She  observed  that  the 
water  was  heaped  up  a  little  against  the  side 
of  the  basin,  all  around.  She  asked  Rollo 
to  observe  it. 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  "  and  the  needle  and 
cork  run  right  up  that  ridge  of  water." 

"And  the  bubbles  too,"  said  Mary. 

Mary  pointed,  when  she  said  this,  to 
several  little  bubbles  which  were  adhering 
closely  to  the  side  of  the  basin,  in  another 
place. 

She  took  up  a  little  straw,  and  pushed 
away  some  of  the  bubbles  from  the  side  of 
the  basin,  and  then  gently  moved  them  back 
again  until  they  were  pretty  near,  and 
observed  that  they  would  immediately  rush 


160      INTELLECTUAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

up  against  the  side  again.  She  did  not 
understand  this  phenomenon,  especially  as 
the  water  was  raised  a  little  along  the  edge 
by  the  side  of  the  basin,  so  that  the  bubbles 
and  the  needle  actually  appeared  to  rush  up 
hill. 

After  examining  this  for  some  time,  Mary 
moved  the  cork  float,  with  the  needle  upon 
it,  back  into  the  middle  of  the  basin,  and  then 
left  it  to  itself.  It  slowly  moved  around 
until  it  pointed  to  the  garden  gate,  as  it  had 
done  before. 

"Now  what  is  the  reason?  "  said  Rollo  ; 
"that  isn't  north." 

Mary  looked  upon  it  very  attentively  for 
a  few  minutes  in  silence,  and  then  said, 
suddenly, 

"  O,  I  see." 

"  What  ? "  said  Rollo. 

She  did  not  answer,  but  pointed  down  to 
the  platform  by  the  side  of  the  basin. 

Rollo  looked  where  she  pointed,  and  saw 
the  hammer  lying  there.  He  had  had  it  to 
play  with  a  short  time  before,  and,  when  he 
brought  the  basin  of  water,  he  had  laid  it 
down  by  his  side. 

"What?"  said  Rollo. 


INTELLECTUAL  PHILOSOPHY.      161 

"  The  hammer  attracts  the  needle,"  re- 
plied Mary. 

"  The  hammer?"  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Mary.  "  Don't  you  know 
that  iron  attracts  the  needle,  and  it  will  not 
point  to  the  north  if  there  is  any  iron  near 
to  draw  it  away  ?  " 

Rollo  was  just  going  to  take  the  hammer 
up,  but  Mary  stopped  him,  saying, 

"  Wait  a  moment.  Let  me  take  it  away 
slowly,  and  see  the  effect." 

So  Mary  told  Rollo  to  watch  the  needle, 
while  she  carefully  drew  the  hammer  away. 

Rollo  did  so.  He  and  Mary  both  watched 
the  needle.  It  was  pointing  pretty  nearly 
toward  the  hammer,  and  when  Mary  gently 
moved  the  hammer  away,  the  needle,  released 
from  the  influence  which  the  iron  exerted 
upon  it,  slowly  moved  back  towards  the 
direction  of  the  barn,  that  is,  the  direction  of 
a  north  and  south  line,  which  is  called  the 
meridian. 

"  It's  going  back  !  it's  going  back  !  "  said 
Rollo. 

Mary  said  nothing,  but  watched  it  care- 
fully. The  needle  swung  beyond  thQ  direc- 
tion of  the  meridian  a  little  way,  and  then 
g*  H* 


162      INTELLECTUAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

came  slowly  back  again.  So  it  continued 
vibrating  from  one  side  to  the  other,  though 
to  a  less  and  less  distance  every  time.  Fi- 
nally, it  came  to  a  state  of  rest :  but  it  was 
not  then,  however,  exactly  in  the  meridian. 

"What  makes  it  swing  so,  back  and 
forth  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"I  don't  Know  exactly,"  said  Mary.  "I 
suppose  the  force  that  it  moves  with,  carries 
it  a  little  beyond,  and  then  it  is  drawn  back 
again,  and  that  makes  the  oscillations." 

"Oscillations?  "  said  Rollo,  inquiringly.     . 

"  Yes.  They  call  this  swinging  back  and 
forth,  oscillating ;  and  each  movement  is  an 
oscillation." 

"  Is  that  the  name  of  it  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mary.  "  When  you  tie  a 
little  stone  to  a  string,  and  hold  the  upper 
end  of  the  string  still,  and  let  the  stone 
swing  back  and  forth,  it  makes  oscillations." 

"  I  mean  to  try  it,"  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mary  ;  "and  I  will  help  you 
by  and  by,  after  I  have  studied  my  philoso- 
phy lesson." 

"  Your  philosophy  lesson  ?  "  asked  Rollo. 
"  Have  you  got  a  philosophy  lesson  to 
get?" 


INTELLECTUAL  PHILOSOPHY.      163 

"Yes,"  said  Mary,  "in  that  great  book." 

So  Rollo  took  up  Mary's  book,  which  she 
had  laid  down  upon  the  platform  near  Rollo's 
apparatus.  He  found  that  the  title  of  it  was 
"  Intellectual  Philosophy." 

"Intellectual  Philosophy?"  said  Rollo; 
•'  and  what  sort  of  philosophy  is  intellectual 
philosophy?  " 

"It  is  the  philosophy  of  the  mind"  re- 
plied Mary.  "  It  explains  to  us  about  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  our  minds." 

"  Are  there  any  experiments  in  intellectual 
philosophy  ?  "  asked  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mary,  "  we  can  try  experi- 
ments in  intellectual  philosophy." 

"  What  experiments  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"Why,  there  is  a  question  whether,  we 
always  dream  when  we  are  asleep." 

"/do,"  said  Rollo,  "every  night." 

"  Yes,  but  perhaps  not  all  night  long." 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  said  Rollo.  "  I  have  good 
long  dreams." 

"  But,"  replied  Mary,  "  you  may  dream 
several  hours  in  the  night,  so  as  to  remem- 
ber good  long  dreams  in  the  morning,  and 
yet  perhaps  you  might  have  been,  for  some 
time,  perfectly  sound  asleep,  so  as  not  to  have 


164      INTELLECTUAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

any  dreams  in  your  mind  at  all.  Some 
persons  think  we  dream  all  the  time  when 
we  are  asleep,  and  others  think  we  don't 
dream  all  the  time.  Now  we  might  con- 
trive  some  experiments  to  decide  the  ques- 
tion. " 

"How?"  saidRollo. 

"  Why,  you  and  I  might  agree  to  wake 
each  other  up  several  times,  from  a  sound 
sleep,  and  then,  if  we  were  dreaming  at 
that  time,  we  should  probably  remember  it," 

"  Well,"  said  Rollo,  H  let  us  try  it." 

w  That  would  be  an  experiment  in  intel- 
lectual philosophy,"  said  Mary. 

Rollo  determined  to  try  the  experiment ; 
and  then  he  took  Mary's  book,  and  asked 
her  where  her  lesson  was  that  day,  She 
found  the  place,  and  Rollo  read  a  little. 
He  could  not  understand  it  very  well,  and 
so  he  concluded  that  he  would  rather  have 
Mary  go  and  study  her  lesson,  and  then 
come  down  and  help  him  make  the  experi- 
ments of  oscillation. 

Mary  accordingly  took  her  book  and  went 
in,  and  left  Rollo  at  his  play. 


165 


OSCILLATIONS 

In  about  an  hour,  Mary  came  down  into 
the  yard  in  pursuit  of  Rollo,  in  order  to  try 
the  experiments  which  she  had  proposed. 

When  Rollo  saw  her  coming,  he  left  his 
play,  and  ran  to  meet  her. 

"  Well,  Mary,"  said  he,  "  have  you  come 
to  make  the  oscillations  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Mary.  "I  have  brought 
some  thread  for  strings,  and  I  want  you  to 
get  some  pebble  stones  —  some  large,  and 
some  small  ones." 

Rollo  went  for  the  pebble  stones,  while 
Mary  looked  about  for  a  suitable  place  for 
making  the  experiments.  In  a  corner  of  the 
yard  there  was  a  bench  under  a  tree,  and 
the  branches  came  down  pretty  low.  Mary 
thought  that  this  would  be  a  good  place,  for 
she  could  tie  her  strings  to  these  branches 
with  the  pebbles  hanging  down  below ;  and 
she  and  Rollo  could  watch  the  oscillations, 
while  seated  upon  the  bench. 


166  OSCILLATIONS. 

Mary  took  her  station  here,  and  Rollo 
presently  appeared,  with  the  crown  of  his 
cap  half  rilled  with  pebble  stones.  Mary 
said  they  would  do  finely.  She  poured 
them  out  upon  the  bench  by  her  side,  and 
Rollo  put  his  cap  upon  his  head  again, 

"Now,  Rollo,"  said  she,  "we  will  study 
the  art  of  experimenting." 

"  No,"  said  Rollo,  "  we  are  going  to  study 
oscillation." 

"Yes,"  replied  Mary;  "the  experiments 
are  to  be  on  oscillations ;  but  what  I  want 
principally  to  teach  you,  is,  the  proper  way 
to  make  experiments." 

"Well,"  said  Rollo. 

Mary  said  no  more,  but  she  proceeded  to 
tie  a  small  pebble  to  the  end  of  one  of  the 
long  threads  which  she  had  brought  out  with 
her.  Then  she  tied  the  other  end  of  the 
thread  to  the  branch  of  the  tree,  which  was 
over  her  head.  The  pebble  then  hung  down 
before  them,  so  that  both  Rollo  and  herself 
could  plainly  see  all  its  motions. 

"The  first  thing,"  said  Mary,  "is  to  get  a 
clear  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  oscillation,  for 
we  must  know  what  we  are  experimenting 
about." 


OSGiLLAtiONS.  167 

So  saying,  Mary  carefully  took  hold  of  the 
suspended  pebble  stone,  and  began  to  draw 
it  off  towards  one  side.  She  showed  Rollo 
that,  as  it  Was  confined  by  its  string  above,  it 
must  move  in  a  curved  line  when  she  drew 
it  away  from  its  place,  rising  higher  and 
higher  the  farther  it  was  drawn  aWay.  And 
When  she  had  drawn  it  Out  to  a  considerable 
distance,  to  one  side,  it  was  at  a  much  higher 
level,  than  when  it  hung  down  freely  in  its 
natural  position. 

"Now,"  said  Mary,  "you  see  that  if  I  let 
it  go,  it  will  descend  of  course  as  much  as  it 
can,  for  the  earth  draws  it  downwards." 

"  The  earth  draws  it  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mary.  "  The  reason  why 
things  fall  is  that  they  are  attracted,  or  drawn 
down,  by  the  earth.  Now  the  earth  draws 
the  pebble.  It  would  go  straight  towards  it, 
if  it  could  ;  but  the  string  confines  it,  and  so 
it  can  only  go  down  in  the  same  way  that 
it  came  up ;  that  is,  by  the  curved  line." 

Mary  then  held  one  of  her  hands  open  at 
the  place  where  the  pebble  had  hung  when 
it  had  been  at  liberty,  and  let  go  the-  pebble, 
Which  she  had  been  holding  with  the  other. 
It  fell  down  in  the  curved  line,  or  arc,  as 


168  OSCILLATIONS. 

Mary  had  said  it  would,  until  it  struck  her 
hand,  and  there  it  stopped  and  remained  at 
rest. 

"  What  did  you  stop  it  for  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  So  that  we  could  see  and  attend  to  one 
part  of  the  phenomenon  at  a  time,"  said 
Mary ;  "  that  is,  the  descent  of  the  pebble. 
You  see  the  attraction  of  the  earth  causes 
the  pebble  to  go  down  if  it  can,  and  the 
confinement  of  the  string  prevents  its  going 
down  in  any  other  way  than  in  that  curve 
or  arc.  For  the  string  keeps  it  always  just 
its  own  length  from  the  branch,  and  so  that 
makes  the  curved  line  the  arc  of  a  circle." 

"  Yes,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  understand." 

Then  Mary  drew  up  the  pebble  once  or 
twice  more,  and  let  Rollo  see  it  fall  against 
her  hand.  Rollo  observed  that  it  was  a  very 
regular  arc. 

"Now  we  see,"  continued  Mary,  "that  I 
hold  my  hand  so  as  to  stop  the  pebble  stone 
at  the  lowest  point  to  which  it  can  go ;  for  I 
hold  it  exactly  under  the  point  where  the 
upper  end  of  the  string  is  fastened  to  the 
tree.  Now  1  will  take  my  hand  away,  and 
then  let  the  pebble  fall,  and  we  will  see 
what  takes  place." 


OSCILLATIONS.  169 

So  Mary  took  her  hand  away,  and  let  the 
pebble  fall  freely.  It  descended  as  before 
through  the  arc,  and  then,  by  the  force  which 
it  acquired  in  moving  so  far,  it  was  propelled 
beyond  the  lowest  point,  and  ascended  in 
another  curve,  upon  the  other  side,  simi- 
lar to  the  first.  When  the  force  was  expend- 
ed, it  came  back  again ;  and  thus  it  swung 
to  and  fro,  several  times,  and  at  length  came 
almost  to  a  state  of  rest. 

"  There,"  said  Mary,  "those  are  the  oscil- 
lations we  are  going  to  experiment  upon." 

"Yes,"  saidRollo.    ' 

"  And  first,"  said  Mary,  "  we  notice  that 
they  are  regular." 

So  she  swung  the  pebble  again ;  and  as  it 
moved  to  and  fro,  she  counted  the  oscillations 
aloud,  beating  time  with  her  hand,  down 
and  up,  thus, — 

"One,  —  two,  —  three,  —  four,"  &c. 
Rollo  perceived  that  they  were  very  regular. 

"  Now,  first  we  will  endeavor  to  ascertain 
by  our  experiments,"  said  Mary,  "  what  the 
time  of  the  vibrations  depends  upon." 

"  Well,"  said  Rollo. 

"  You  see,"  continued  Mary,  "  it  swings 
back  and  forth   with   a   certain   degree   of 

h  15 


170  OSCILLATIONS. 

rapidity.  Now  we  want  to  know  what  this 
rapidity  depends  upon,  and  then  we  could 
make  a  pendulum  so  that  it  would  oscillate 
faster  or  slower,  just  as  we  pleased." 

"  A  pendulum  ?  "  asked  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mary,  "  we  call  it  a  pendu- 
lum. Any  heavy  body  hung  in  this  manner, 
so  as  to  swing  back  and  forth  by  its  weight, 
is  called  a  pendulum.  So  that  we  are 
experimenting  upon  the  oscillations  of  a 
pendulum." 

"  Yes,"  said  Rollo,  "  I  understand." 

"  Now  the  question  which  we  are  going 
to  examine,"  said  Mary,  "is,  what  the  rapid- 
ity of  the  vibrations  depends  upon." 

"O,  it  depends  upon  the  bigness  of  the 
pebble,"  said  Rollo. 

"  How  do  you  know  ? "  said  Mary. 

"  Why,  of  course,  a  bigger  pebble  will  be 
heavier,  and  will  fall  quicker,  and  that  will 
make  it  vibrate  faster." 

"  That  is  reasoning  about  it,"  said  Mary, 
u.  and  what  we  want  to  do,  now,  is  to  expert- 
ment.  Now,  in  order  to  decide  it  by  experi- 
ment, we  must  try  two  pendulums,  one  with 
a  small  pebble,  and  the  other  with  a  large 
one." 


OSCILLATIONS.  171 

"Very  well,"  said  Rollo,  "we  will ;  and 
then  we  shall  see  that  the  big  one  will 
vibrate  the  quickest." 

"  Let  us  think,  first,  what  other  circum- 
stances there  are,  that  it  may  depend  upon." 

"I  can't  think  of  any  thing  else,"  said 
Rollo. 

"Why,  there  is  the  nature  of  the  body 
which  we  suspend.  A  piece  of  cork  may 
oscillate  differently  from  a  piece  of  stone:" 

"Yes,"  said  Rollo,  "it  will  oscillate 
slower." 

"We  must  not  decide,"  said  Mary,  "in 
our  own  minds,  before  we  try  the  experi- 
ment. We  must  leave  our  minds  free  to 
observe  the  facts,  and  wait  until  we  make 
the  experiment,  before  we  come  to  any  con- 
clusion, or  else  we  shall  not  be  good  experi- 
menters." 

"Why  not?"  said  Rollo. 

"  Because,"  said  Mary,  "  when  persons 
make  up  their  minds  beforehand  what  the 
facts  will  be,  they  are  very  apt  not  to  observe 
fairly.  So  good  observers  or  experimenters 
always  take  care  to  keep  their  minds  free 
and  unbiassed." 

"Well,"  said  Rollo,   "and  what   else  is 


172  OSCILLATIONS. 

there  that  the  oscillations  may  depend 
upon  ? " 

"  The  length  of  the  string,"  replied  Mary. 

"  O  yes,"  said  Rollo,  "  it  may  depend  upon 
that." 

"  Let  us  see,"  continued  Mary.  "  There  are 
three  experiments  we  have  already  proposed  ; 
a  large  and  a  small  pebble ;  a  pebble  and  a 
cork ;  a  long  and  a  short  string ;  and  now 
there  is  one  more,  — a  long  and  short  arc." 

"  How  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Why,  if  I  draw  up  the  weight,  which 
forms  the  pendulum,  pretty  high,  it  will  swing 
back  and  forth  through  a  long  arc.  But  if  1 
move  it  only  a  little  way,  it  will  swing 
through  only  a  short  arc,  and  that  may  make 
a  difference  in  the  length  of  the  vibrations." 

"  Well,"  said  Rollo,  "  and  now  let  us  try." 

"  First,  let  us  see  whether  we  have  got  all 
the  apparatus  we  want.  Here  are  strings 
and  pebbles, — only  we  want  a  cork." 

"I'll  go  and  get  one,"  said  Rollo. 

So  Rollo  went  off  towards  the  house  to 
get  the  cork.  In  a  few  minutes  he  came 
back,  saying, 

"I  have  got  the  cork.  Now  how  shall 
we  begin?" 


OSCILLATIONS.  173 

"  First,"  replied  Mary,  "  we  will  try  what 
effect  the  weight  of  the  pebble  will  have 
upon  the  oscillations." 

"  Yery  well,"  said  Rollo. 

"Now,  in  order  to  test  that,"  added  Mary, 
"  we  must  take  two  pebble  stones,  of  differ- 
ent sizes,  and  hang  them  together,  by  strings 
of  the  same  kind,  and  of  the  same  length ; 
and  then  we  must  set  them  a-going  exactly 
together,  and  then  watch  the  oscillations. 
You  see  that  as  they  will  be  alike  in  every 
respect,  excepting  the  size  of  the  pebble 
stones,  whatever  difference  there  is  in  the 
mode  of  vibration  will  probably  be  caused  by 
the  difference  in  the  size  of  the  stones." 

"  Is  that  the  way  they  do  it  ?  "  said  Rollo. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Mary.  "  Whenever  we 
want  to  know  what  effect  any  one  circum- 
stance produces,  in  such  a  case,  we  always 
arrange  two  experiments,  making  trjem  very 
different  in  respect  to  the  circumstance 
which  we  wish  to  examine,  and  as  nearly 
alike  as  possible  in  all  other  respects." 

"I  think  that  is  a  very  good  way,"  said 
Rollo. 

"Yes,"  replied  Mary,  "I  think  it   is  an 
excellent  way." 
h*  15* 


174  OSCILLATIONS. 

While  Mary  was  thus  explaining  her  plan: 
to  Rollo,  she  was  going  on  steadily  with 
preparations,  Rollo  standing  all  the  time  by 
her  side,  looking  on  with  great  interest. 
Mary  selected  two  pebbles.  One  was  as  big 
as  a  walnut,  and  the  other  about  as  big  as 
an  egg.  She  tied  two  of  her  threads  to  these 
stones,  one  to  each,  and  then  tied  the  other 
ends  of  these  threads  to  a  small  branch  of 
the  tree  which  extended  horizontally  over 
their  heads.  They  hung  down  about  two 
feet.  She  took  care  so  to  adjust  the  strings, 
as  to  have  the  centres  of  the  stones  as  nearly 
as  possible  on  a  level. 

"  The  big  one  is  twice  as  large,  and  so  it 
will  go  twice  as  fast,"  said  Rollo. 

u  We  shall  see,"  said  Mary. 

She  then  drew  them  both  carefully  out  a 
little  way  on  one  side,  and  holding  them 
there  steadily  a  moment,  she  let  them  go. 
They  immediately  began  to  swing  back  and 
forth,  together. 

After  a  few  oscillations,  however,  the  large 
stone  began  to  gain  a  little  upon  the  other, 
and  seemed  to  be  moving  faster.  Presently 
it  had  gained  half  an  oscillation,  i.  e.  when 
the  large  one  was  moving  forward,  the  small 
one  would  be  coming  back. 


OSCILLATIONS.  175 

"  The  big  one  moves  the  fastest,"  said 
Rollo. 

"  Not  much,"  said  Mary. 

"No,"  said  Rollo,  "  not  much." 

**.  And  I  don't  think  it  is  owing  to  the  dif- 
ference in  the  bigness  of  the  stones." 

"  What  else  can  it  be  ? "  said  Rollo. 
"  They  are  exactly  alike  in  all  other  re- 
spects." 

"  Not  exactly,"  said  Mary.  "  We  have 
made  them  as  nearly  alike  as  we  could,  but 
not  exactly.  There  may  be  a  good  many 
little  differences  that  we  do  not  observe. 
But  if  the  size  of  the  stone  would  cause  any 
difference  in  the  vibrations,  I  should  think  it 
would  make  a  much  greater  difference,  for 
one  is  twice  as  big  as  the  other." 

"Let  us  try  a  very  big  stone,"  said  Rollo, 

"  Well,"  said  Mary. 

So  Rollo  got  a  stone  as  large  as  an  orange, 
which  was  as  heavy  a  one  as  Mary  thought 
the  thread  would  hold  ;  and  Mary  suspended 
that  from  the  branch  of  the  tree,  and  then 
swung  it  in  company  with  the  two  others. 
They  all  went  very  nearly  together  at  first, 
though  there  was  evidently  a  slight  differ- 
ence, which,  in  a  short  time,  separated  the 


176  OSCILLATIONS. 

oscillations,  so  that  the  stones  did  not  keep 
together;  while  yet  they  each  swung  back 
and  forth,  in  nearly  the  same  time.  Rollo 
and  Mary  both  concluded,  from  the  result  of 
this  experiment,  that  the  size  of  the  vibra- 
ting body  did  not  perceptibly  affect  the 
rapidity  of  the  vibrations. 

"  Now,"  said  Mary,  "  we  will  try  different 
lengths  of  string." 

So  she  began  to  look  over  Rollo's  pebbles, 
to  find  two  as  nearly  as  possible  alike. 

"  The  pebble  stones  must  be  of  the  same 
size,  this  time,  for  we  want  the  two  pendu- 
lums to  be  alike  in  all  respects,  except  the 
length  of  the  string,  for  that  is  the  circum- 
stance which  we  are  now  going  to  consider. 
We  will  have  one  string  twice  as  long  as  the 
other." 

Mary  found  two  pebbles  very  nearly  equal 
in  size,  and  similar  in  shape.  She  tied  them 
to  two  strings,  making  one  string  twice  as 
long  as  the  other.  She  suspended  them  as 
before,  and  then,  taking  hold  of  one  with 
one  hand,  and  the  other  with  the  other, 
she  drew  them  out  to  the  same  distance  on 
one  side,  and  let  them  go.  The  short  one 
began  at  once  to  swing  back  and  forth  very 


OSCILLATIONS.  177 

quick,  while  the  other  followed  quite 
slowly. 

"That  makes  a  difference,"  said  Rollo, 
clapping  his  hands. 

"It  goes  twice  as  fast,"  said  Mary. 

"  More  than  twice  as  fast,"  said  Rollo,  "I 
think." 

"Let  us  see,"  said  Mary. 

They  set  them  vibrating  again ;  but  they 
did  not  succeed  in  ascertaining  whether  the 
short  one  went  more  or  less  than  twice  as 
fast  as  the  other.  The  two  motions,  so  rapid 
and  so  near  together,  confused  them.  At 
length,  Mary  proposed  that  Rollo  should 
count  the  vibrations  of  the  long  pendulum, 
while  she  counted  those  of  the  short  one, 
and  when  she  had  got  up  to  twenty,  she  said 
they  would  both  stop,  and  then  Rollo  could 
tell  how  many  he  had  got  in  the  same  time. 
But  this  plan,  though  apparently  a  very  sim- 
ple one,  they  found  it  somewhat  difficult  to 
put  into  practice.  Mary's  pendulum  puzzled 
Rollo's  counting,  and  Rollo,  who  could  not 
count  very  well  without  at  least  whispering 
the  numbers,  puzzled  Mary,  and  so  pretty 
soon  they  gave  it  up. 

Rollo  then  said  that  he  meant   to   try  a 


178  OSCILLATIONS. 

very  short  pendulum  indeed,  and  he  asked 
Mary  to  tie  one  up  for  him,  not  more  than 
an  inch  in  length.  She,  however,  said  that 
it  would  not  he  necessary  to  tie  it  to  the 
branch ;  but,  instead  of  that,  she  took  hold  of 
the  string  of  one  of  the  pebbles  which  was 
already  hanging  before  them,  about  an  inch 
above  the  pebble  itself,  and  then  set  the  peb- 
ble in  motion ;  and  they  were  both  very 
much  interested  in  observing  how  quick  it 
vibrated  to  and  fro. 

Rollo  then  wanted  to  try  a  very  long  one, 
and  proposed  that  he  should  climb  up  into 
the  tree,  and  tie  the  end  of  the  string  to  a 
high  branch.  But  Mary  was  afraid  that  he 
would  fall ;  and  besides,  she  said  that  the 
pendulum  would  not  swing  clear  of  the 
branches  below.  She,  however,  immediately 
thought  of  the  chamber  window,  and  said 
that  she  would  try  it  there.  She  accordingly 
went  up  into  her  chamber,  taking  a  large 
pebble  stone  with  her,  and  Rollo  remained 
below  to  set  the  pendulum  in  motion,  when 
it  should  be  ready.  Mary  soon  appeared  at 
the  window,  and  -Rollo  watched  her  while 
she  tied  her  pebble  to  the  end  of  a  thread. 

"  Have  you  got  your  thread  long  enough  ?  " 


OSCILLATIONS.  179 

said  Rollo.  "  It  will  take  a  good  long  thread 
to  reach  away  down  here." 

"It  is  a  whole  spool  of  cotton,"  said  Mary. 
And,  so  saying,  she  held  up  in  her  hand  the 
spool,  to  the  thread  of  which  she  was,  tying 
her  pebble  stone. 

When  it  was  secured,  she  slowly  let  it 
down,  until  it  reached  Rollo's  hand,  which 
was  held  up  from  below,  ready  to  receive  it. 
Mary  then  held  the  thread  steady  above,  at 
a  little  distance  out  from  the  window,  while 
Rollo  took  the  stone  along  the  side  of  the 
house,  three  or  four  feet  from. the  place 
where  it  would  naturally  hang.  He  then 
let  it  go,  and  it  swung  back  very  slowly. 

"  O,  how  slow !  "  said  Rollo. 

"Yes,"  said  Mary,  "it  is  very  slow,  in- 
deed." 

"I  wish  you  had  gone  up  to  the  garret 
window,"  said  Rollo. 

"  O,  this  will  do  very  well,"  said  Mary. 

Rollo  determined  to  see  how  many  he 
could  count  while  the  stone  made  one  oscil- 
lation to  and  fro.     He  counted  sixteen. 

Mary  then  said  she  was  tired  of  experi- 
menting, and  so  she  should  not  come  down 
again.     She,  however,  asked  Rollo  to   set 


180  OSCILLATIONS. 

the  pendulum  swinging,  and  that  then  she 
would  draw  the  thread  in,  and  he  could  see 
that  it  would  go  faster  and  faster,  the  farther 
she  drew  it  up,  for  that  would  make  the 
string  grow  shorter  and  shorter. 

Rollo  did  so  ;  and  this  was  the  end  of  the 
experiments  on  oscillations. 


